The nonprofit New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which unfolds over this weekend and next in the Crescent City, is operating without some of its largest corporate donors this year, according to The Times-Picayune.

The troubled insurance company American International Group, which for three years sponsored the festival’s popular Gospel Tent, pulled its support in the wake of its acceptance of billions in loans from federal taxpayers.

Two other sponsors — Borders Books and the liquor manufacturer Southern Comfort — also bowed out of this year’s festival. Eleven businesses, including the oil company Shell, which became the event’s main sponsor following 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, returned. However, a Shell executive, citing the recent drop in oil prices, told The Times-Picayune that it’s too early to tell if the company will renew its commitment to the festival next year.

Corporate sponsorships are the festival’s second biggest source of revenue after ticket sales, says Louis Edwards, the event’s associate producer. The festival costs about $17-million to run each year. American companies spent more than $1-billion sponsoring music events in 2008, according to a study by IEG, a consulting firm in Chicago.