A fixture in Penticton, B.C.’s summer calendar for 30 years, the Pentastic Jazz Fest will be cancelled in 2026, as its longtime organizers say a number of challenges meant they had to pull the plug.

The annual festival used to be held after Labour Day in September, and organizers say that it attracted up to 2,000 people a year, except during a break for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The cancellation is the latest in a series of suspensions for performing arts and community festivals across B.C.

In addition to uncertainty around U.S. border crossings for American artists, declining grant funding and rising costs also meant the festival couldn’t proceed, said organizer Beth Campbell.

“This year, we had some insurmountable challenges that just couldn’t be solved,” Campbell told Sarah Penton, host of CBC’s Radio West.

“We just couldn’t find a solution to it and they were circumstances beyond our control … our demographic is an aging demographic, so we were losing a few people simply because of that.”

Campbell, who organized the festival since its inception with her husband Michael, said it was first inspired by a visit to the Terrific Jazz Party festival in Victoria.

At the time, Campbell was a city councillor, and reasoned that hosting a jazz festival in Penticton would work well, given the relative proximity of different performing arts venues in the city.

“Thirty years ago there weren’t the events after Labour Day that there are today, and we felt that that would extend the tourism season by a week, and keep the dollars coming into the community,” she said.

The organizer said she has many fond memories of the festival, including a tour bus that would come from Courtenay, B.C., and feature partiers with parasols and Dixieland costumes.

Penticton Mayor Julius Bloomfield said the “landmark event” was of huge significance for the Interior city of about 37,000.

“The acts came from all over North America … and the mood around the festival was always buoyant,” he said.

“Everybody who attended, you know, it was like they shed 40 years of their age. It was really quite something to watch and to witness.”

Bloomfield noted that the cancellation of Pentastic comes after the cancellation of the Okanagan Granfondo bike race, another major event for the city.

He said the city was hoping other local volunteers would step up to the plate and put on a different type of arts festival.

As a classical trumpet player himself, Bloomfield said he appreciated the efforts of the Campbells in bringing the festival to Penticton for three decades.

“There was tremendous value to the city, you know, with the festival. There’s no doubt about that.”