Ady Breeds Dog's Breakfast www.sunlive.co.nz

The boss and I have decided to set up our own Easter music festival as it seems like an easy way to make a few dollars with no risk.

All you have to do is go to the city council and ask for a $120k loan, run at a loss, then ask the council for another $120k to cover those losses.

A scene from this year's National Jazz Festival - a sad sight from previous years.

It's a win-win situation. The ratepayers have plenty of money – or so the council thinks anyway; what a corker situation!

It's a bit cheeky really, as all the festivals that are occurring are being set-up and run as commercial entities, and as such, they should sink or swim on their own.

Now, if the organisers of the Jazz Festival have run at a profit over the last five years, where has the money loaned to them by the ratepayers gone?

As far as I know – it certainly has not been repaid.

The council can contribute by closing roads, cleaning up the mess and other things, but no way should they get involved in someone's commercial enterprise.

I applaud the councillors last week who found out loaning them more money was against their own constitution, ah sanity!

My suggestion is if they want to borrow money, do so, not from the ratepayers – who do not see any return on their investment – but from a commercial backer.

This year's festival ran at a loss – of the organisers' own making; sure the weather did not help, but they have had five years of magnificent Tauranga Easter sunshine, so they should have had a surplus of profits to get them over an inclement one.

This Easter, with the downturn in the economy and people looking very hard at how they spend their entertainment dollars, it was a good time to downsize the event.

Instead, it involved musicians who 90 per cent of the public had never heard of – and an attempt to fill an event centre charging $90 a head.

Would it not have been better to have asked anyone involved in the hospitality industry what was happening in the entertainment field – and scale the size of the event on those findings? I'm sure they would have been told it was tough out there.

What the boss and I are going to do is promote the Tauranga music scene and our own talented and exciting musicians – that is when the council, via the ratepayers, give us our $120k.

Damn, I have slipped off my soap box and injured myself, maybe it is time I headed back to the duvet and calmed myself with dreams of wild game – a little like keeping up with where the ratepayers' money is going really, as that in itself is a wild game.

Cheers all and make sure you get down to Animal Antics and match dogs with their owners as it sure sounds like a lot of fun to me.

Also, visit www.sunlive.co.nz to vote in the Animal Antics Four Legged Folly talking pet video competition.