ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Jazz 90.1 has had its tent at the Rochester Jazz Festival for 18 years, but organizers never imagined they’d get their equipment stolen from a locked case. The station said about $1,500 worth of gear is missing.

The gear went missing sometime between Saturday evening and Monday morning.

News10NBC’s Eriketa Cost spoke to the general manager, who believes someone pried open the corners of a locked case to pull out an audio mixer, three headsets, and a microphone.

If you’ve made it to the Jazz Fest this year, or any year, you’ve probably seen their tent. Jazz 90.1 depends on your donations to stay on the air.

General Manager Rob Linton said they don’t have the cash to replace the equipment right now. The booth has been at the festival for years, and Linton said nothing has happened to this level. The station sent out a plea on Facebook asking the public to keep an eye out or send donations.

He said friends near and far have shocked him with support.

“I’ve heard from folks all around the country, folks as far as California, and people saying, ‘How can we help?’ Old audio guys saying, ‘Hey, I got a mixer in my basement, I’ll drop-ship it to you.’ And we even had somebody purchase a brand new mixer for us and they’re sending it to us — so it’s been pretty incredible,” Linton said.

“We assumed we would be okay leaving a locked case and gear down here, and we weren’t,” he added.

News10NBC: Did the case look tampered with?

Linton: It did not, which threw us a little bit, but after playing around a little bit we realized how somebody could reach in and get it out of there, so the case did not look tampered with whatsoever.

News10NBC: And you’re sure this was a theft?

Linton: Yes absolutely, we have no doubt, all of our staff that were at the booth between Saturday night at 7 and Monday night after 2, all have said nobody opened the case and nothing weird was going on.

Rochester Police are investigating and working with the University of Rochester to see if there’s any security video that might help.

Jazz 90.1 is one of the few public jazz stations in the country. The community has been supporting them for more than fifty years.

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