Jurmala City Council hopes that ''New Wave'' will be held in the city this summer

Even though the organizer of the international pop-music contest and festival ''New Wave'', Igor Krutoy, has announced that the festival will not take place in Jurmala this summer, the Jurmala City Council hopes the opposite is true.

Jurmala Deputy Mayor Larisa Loskutovs told the LNT television channel that the city council has no official information on such a decision by the festival's organizers. She believes that the information is inaccurate, because rumors that the festival will leave Jurmala have also been circulated in previous years.

Loskutova added that the city council is doing everything it can for the festival to take place in Jurmala this summer. According the the politician, there also have been no special requests issued to the city council regarding this year's festival.

As reported, the international pop-music contest and festival ''New Wave'' will not take place in the Latvian coastal resort city of Jurmala anymore, because all cooperation possibilities with the Jurmala City Council have been exhausted and its organizers will choose some other city as the festival venue; Riga is one of the candidates, as Igor Krutoy informed in a statement printed in the newspaper "Cas" today.

Krutoy explains that "New Wave" organizers and the Jurmala City Council are no longer able to cooperate.

As LETA was previously informed by Latvian composer and one of the festival's patrons - Raimonds Pauls, he has heard the rumors that the festival will not take place in Jurmala anymore, and does not find this surprising, because there have been disagreements between Jurmala city and the festival's organizers in the past.

Last summer, organizers complained about the old and inadequate facilities backstage, and the reality of "hiked up" prices in hotels and restaurants during the festival.

Alexander Shenkman, who chairs the organizing committee, also commented that "Jurmala is not developing at the same pace as the festival."

This year's ''New Wave'' was scheduled to take place in Jurmala from July 24 to 29, and tickets are already being sold.

Last year, the festival celebrated its 10th anniversary.

LETA

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