ex-employees of Ghent Jazz organizer Bertrand Flamang open the door

Exuberant trips, sky-high bills and a mountain of debt. That seems to be Bertrand Flamang’s legacy. The former organizer of Gent Jazz and Jazz Middelheim currently shuns the media, but former employees do want to open up about their boss.

“A power-hungry megalomaniac.” It is not uncommon for Bertrand Flamang (54) to be portrayed in this way by his ex-employees and insiders. Years of “extreme mismanagement” under his reign of terror wreaked havoc at Gent Jazz and Jazz Middelheim.

“Be careful with Bertrand Flamang. A dangerous individual.” We were reminded of this repeatedly, long before the bankruptcy of the non-profit organization Jazz en Muziek was pronounced. “It’s an open secret that his business stinks. That someone like him has been able to go about his business unhindered for so long is partly due to the smoke screens he managed to pull up. But probably also because of the culture of fear he created in the workplace.”

Robbery by daylight

Nevertheless, most of them wanted to testify last week about the mismanagement that led Gent Jazz and Jazz Middelheim to bankruptcy. “Without personal interest, but from a concern for the artists, employees, visitors of both festivals and the cultural sector.” For years, Flamang plundered the non-profit organization behind both festivals. Unobstructed, but not unseen. Its shameless robbery by daylight caused great internal frustration. Some employees kept to themselves and resigned of their own accord.

The carousel of employees at both festivals is therefore long. “He sat on the throne of that non-profit organization like a flabby king.” The monarch also maintained a reign of terror: “Flamang is someone for whom you had to be ready day and night, even at the most unusual moments. It goes without saying that the pressure is high before and during such a festival. But that pressure was abnormally, inhumanly high. Flamang showed little respect for other people’s boundaries. No respect at all, actually. He seemed eager to break people.”

One disillusioned employee who could not hold back her tears in his presence, he publicly called “hysterical bitch”. She says she had to go to therapy afterwards. Another employee, in turn, claims that Flamang’s behavior and cheating almost drove him to an act of desperation. Resigning seemed the only way out in both cases. “Since I left, I could no longer physically or mentally move myself to go to Gent Jazz. While it has always been one of my favorite festivals. It may not sound great, but I’ve actually been waiting for this moment for a few years now. The moment when the masks would fall.” Is Flamang a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Another employee wouldn’t even call him that. “It’s a pig. Horny for power, sexist and false.”

Schoffie and anarchist

Flamang previously claimed about himself that he never minces words and dares to take the initiative. That attitude led him from self-proclaimed “rascal and anarchist” in the 1980s to café owner in the 1990s and then to the status of the largest jazz festival organizer in this country. Little of that patina remains today.

In tempore non suspecto, Bertrand Flamang was introduced in Knack as “a wayward self-made man”. But that’s a description that didn’t exactly age as fine wine. A stubborn Machiavellian leans closer to the truth, it sounds from within today. Everything seemed allowed for the preservation of power and self-interest. “Since his ‘departure’ in March, for example, he still invoiced the non-profit organization a monthly amount of 13,000 euros. And in September this year he actually had all the strings in his hands again. Around that time it was announced that an application had been submitted to move from the site of the Oude Bijloke to the much larger Sint-Pietersplein. Such a megalomaniac, that could only come from Bertrand.”

The Turk

Before he would manage Gent Jazz and Jazz Middelheim, Flamang was the café owner of Den Turk for four years. Strategically located opposite Ghent’s town hall, where politicians sometimes came to relax or have conversations during and after work. It is believed that in this way he was able to establish close ties with the city authorities. That herring didn’t keep frying.

Flamang always started to live life to the fullest, even though things have been less prosperous at the non-profit organization in recent years. He did not pay suppliers on time, and used his own pecking order. Suppliers of tents and the interim office for the employees would now also be creditors in the bankruptcy. At one point, Flamang held five different bank cards in the name of the non-profit organization Jazz en Muziek. One monthly statement from American Express even amounted to 36,000 euros, it now appears. Exuberant sums were spent on travel, meals and wines.

For the time being, Bertrand Flamang is also still involved in the organization of Mardi Gras on Braunplein during the Gentse Feesten, and in the restaurant SGOL under the Stadshal. However, these matters are separate from the bankrupt non-profit organization Jazz en Muziek.