It's around 17:30 CEST on a Friday and everyone has had a hard week at work and you get the feeling they could all do with a decent night out. The festival is billed to begin at around 18:00 but already crowds are starting to form.
The main entrance and I think I recognise this from the Eurovision in the seventies though correct me if I wrong.
The formalities.over and done with we are greeted by a Dutch youth jazz orchestra.
Full credit to the people who decked out (decorated) the complex and here you see a heavily enhanced example of their work paying tribute to the main performers on the main staircase.
Our shots of "street furniture" are popular and here we see something designed so that tired and emotional jazz buffs can find the next performance though we did miss Stevie Winwood in the Statenhal (more of that later.)
There were some stalls selling musical instruments tucked away in the corner and here we see a bongo salesman showing how these primitive instruments can add variety and stage effect to your act. It good to see someone enjoying their work. I guess they don't get paid too much and is better than admitting you are a computer programmer at parties.
A display of electric guitars. We had to work hard on this but are still not happy the different colours and reflections made it difficult.
The acoustic models were easier as they used more natural sympathetic colours. When we visited the stalls nobody was playing Stairway to Heaven" most odd but it is banned in some shops and was even before they used the joke on Wayne's World.
They do look tempting but those that were playing were very good so we are put off. We use a technique with black and white gradients to lighten up the back of the image. For the technically minded we created a new layer with the gradient going (ramping) from white to black top to bottom then merged it with the image with around 20% transparency.
The cocktail bar - traditionally associated with jazz music and hardly anyone was tempted despite a recent rate cut from the European Central Bank.
There was a headline in the Dutch papers this morning complaining about the service but we strongly disagree. Historically efficient bar service makes or breaks events like this as if it is done badly it can cause stress which negates the reason for coming in the first place. At outdoor events be careful about drinking too much beer in the middle of the day when there are still bands to see. Very tempting after a long journey but experienced festival goers take plenty of water.
A quick scout around and we get into a small room just in time to see a jazz orchestra finishing their sound check though the piano player hangs around to warm up a bit and is far superior to the one who plays on Robbie Williams' records.
Some modern art on the wall.
A matching set of five bongo drums.
A nice bunch of Sunflowers. The bowl was in blue but we desatrated it to fix the color clash.
A rack of CDs. Again we used the gradient technique to light up the back of the image.
Are first chance to sit down and listen to some music and everyone is sat down on the wooden floor and beginning to forget the troubles of the week and are relaxing to cool, mellow trad jazz. I afraid we can name any of the acts in this story - a terrible error which will never happen again.
A solo shot of the saxophonist taken with a cheap digital camera around 40 metres from the stage then enhanced using the Gnu Image Prrogram (GIMP.) Note that we didn enhance it too much as we were at the limit but anyway the closeups of the artists on the posters weren't too flattering. I guess they are a counter to the "airbrushed" pictures of film and pop stars we see on posters around the place. Still they looked happy.
Back into the foyer and people are streaming in and a Dutch five-piece has taken over welcoming the jazz fans or should that be jazz buffs yes the correct term is jazz buffs.
Were going to take a short break now to give you a chance to fill your glasses so when you are ready
