| Entertainment |
| By Charles H E Campbell Sunday, July 24, 2005 |
We are now at the peak of the traditional summer and cultural entertainment programme with Reggae Sumfest culminating this weekend, the Denbigh 'Agricultural' show being staged from July 30 to August 1 and the Jamaica Festival events already in high swing.
In addition to these three super annual festivals during this season, there are a number of other signature events being organised, like Fully Loaded today, which each summer make our cultural calendar very exciting.
Potentially, this makes a Jamaican summer vacation very attractive to our Jamaican diasporic community and visitors from all over the world, and this year the Denbigh 'Agricultural' show has a Caribbean tent inclusive of participants from Canada, Cayman, St Martin, Trinidad and Tobago, Bermuda and Barbados.
As a nation, it is time we begin to seriously consider formalising some degree of harmonisation of all these successful products into one summer cultural and entertainment package for marketing and advertising of the destination abroad. Just last week I read where Cybelle Brown, vice-president of sales and marketing for Black Entertainment Television (BET) Digital Networks said, "the culture of the Caribbean is infectious and well-known the world over".
It was said in response to a call on Caribbean governments to place arts, culture and music at the top of their tourism agenda, made by the outgoing president of the Caribbean Hotel Association, Bertha Parle, at the recent Caribbean Hotel Industry Conference in Miami. This applies even more so to Jamaica.
Last week, however, all the talk has been about Sumfest, especially as it relates to Dancehall Night. Since the exclusion of Bounty Killer and Beenie Man from the line-up, at the behest of title sponsors Red Stripe, everyone was holding their breaths in anticipation of the audience support, level of performances and general vibes which would manifest on Thursday, July 28.
In the absence of Dancehall's four biggest gate pullers locally, including Vybz Cartel and TOK, I must admit that I was very fearful of the inevitable adverse impact on ticket sales, in light of Sting's fall in attendance last Boxing Day.
This concern motivated the subject of my column on June 12, 2005 - 'Self Regulate Or Perish' - in which I stated that it was high time that we become proactive and begin some sort of self regulation, rather than always being forced to resort to reactive measures whenever external forces apply pressure.
I was concerned then about the approach of banning artistes, as opposed to banning their offensive behaviour. This cannot be a realistic solution to our problem.
With all the other capriciousness a promoter has to contemplate in staging a festival such as Reggae Sumfest, ultimately there is always a critical mass known as market appeal, the real potential of likely patrons who will support the event, to put on the other side of the equation.
Furthermore, the industry players have become more enlightened recently. Regardless of the "seh feh" outbursts, proper contractual guidelines can be established and agreed to by promoters and artistes' managers, as well as the artistes themselves.
For example, recently it was reported that all entertainers going to Canada are required to sign a declaration stating that while in Canada they will not engage in activities that advocate the hatred of persons because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex or sexual orientation.
When asked to comment on this requirement, Beenie Man's manager, Patrick Roberts, said "I don't have a problem with that because as long as you are going to a city, you must comply with the rules there".
In analysing the Sumfest experience this year, they started with additional freight and shipping costs, because whereas usually their technical equipment is shipped from the USA to Jamaica by sea, half-way to Cayman one shipment had to return to Miami because of deteriorating weather conditions due to the impending storm Dennis, while another never left port due to Hurricane Emily.
The promoters eventually had to fly all this equipment in at a much higher cost. It is unfortunate, therefore, that because of a weakened line-up their audience for Dancehall Night was literally reduced to about 8,000 patrons or less than half of last year's attendance. Furthermore, without the customary challenge, the performances from many of the Dancehall artistes were lacklustre.
The consensus is that Sizzla was the star of the night, with Lady Saw, Turbulence, Assassin and Chuck Fenda doing good stints on stage.
Elephant Man's performance was flat and minus his usual high-energy output, and Capleton was woefully out of tune and out of form. Some people feel that this year's Dancehall Night produced the poorest attendance and most boring performances in the history of Sumfest.
The audience feedback for International Night 1 is much better, with Sanchez being crowned as the act whose performance excelled, along with Morgan Heritage, Richie Spice and Akon.
It does not seem, however, that from the promoters' perspective there is a lot to celebrate, because the audience on Friday was less than 4,000 people. So far, small audiences have been the main trend this year for Sumfest, because the Rockers' Night, held on Wednesday at Pier One, did not attract a full house either. Crooner Gregory Isaacs was a no-show on this night also.
The lack of public empathy for promoters bothers me, especially when they experience troughs such as this, because the image of them portrayed by people like Ian Boyne is that "these fellows don't care a damn about how they project us to the world" and "concerned as they are, only about raking in money and pulling crowds".
Knowing Sumfest directors personally, I can say categorically that the tone and the essence of those statements are untrue and uncalled for.
This may be another classic example where although the promoter suffers a financial loss, the national economy gains, as Summerfest Productions chairman Robert Russell estimates that $310 million will be injected into the Jamaican economy benefiting business owners in the resort towns, including vendors, taxi operators, restaurants, night clubs, car rental agencies and hotels at a cost of over $60 million to the promoters.
Before closing, I wish to say a little bit more about the Denbigh Agricultural Show. In addition to their daily agricultural and agro-industry exhibitions and displays, patrons attending each day will, for their same entry fee, be entertained at nightly events.
On Saturday, July 30, they will have the grand coronation show where 13 parish contestants will vie for the National Farm Queen title.
On Sunday, there is a gospel concert and on Monday the Rising Stars contestants will give a full performance. It is interesting to note that this is again the largest annual event in Jamaica, attracting more than 70,000 patrons islandwide last year.
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