Innovation and Preservation

Groundins

By:Charles H.E. Campbell


I was a patron at the Little Ochi Seafood Festival, last week Sunday (July 11), held annually on the Fisherman's Beach in Alligator Pond, South Manchester. Since its inception, this event has grown to become one of Jamaica's better-known and more successful integrated festivals, promoting the cuisine for which that area is popular, as well as other cultural elements.

By interfacing with people present, I discovered that many of the patrons were, in fact, regular customers to the restaurants that are permanent establishments on the beach and within the Alligator Pond town itself. I was very impressed by the turnout of the Manchester and St Elizabeth residents, in support of this home-grown event.



Innovation and preservation

A group performing at the Portland Jerk Festival launch
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These patrons accounted for approximately 50% of the demographics of the crowd numbering over 3,000 adults and children, enjoying the wide fare of seafood and the excellent entertainment presented from the stage and elsewhere. The remaining proportion of the audience came from diverse communities across Jamaica; a substantial contingent of returning residents; and visitors from Europe and America who were introduced to this festival by various sources.

Over the last 10 years, these indigenous food festivals -- including the Portland Jerk Festival, arguably the most famous -- have sprung up and evolved to significantly broaden our annual cultural landscape and calendar. By so doing, they have carved out their own niche in targeting the family through concept and marketing thrust.

I am very concerned about the longevity of this one in particular, because of the unusual phenomenon which is presently occurring on the Alligator Pond Beach, where during the last year this site has lost some 40 feet of shoreline to the sea. This is a matter that will not only affect the festival, but the ongoing livelihood of the fishermen, vendors and restaurants that ply their trade on this location. For this reason, I was very happy to be informed that environmental scientists are investigating the reason for and source of this problem to see if and how the adverse effects may be mitigated. For example, is it caused by global warming and a general rise in sea levels? As one traverses along our southern coast it is easy to observe that many other beaches have similarly lost a perilous amount of beach front. Is the encroachment of the sea, therefore, an irreversible process?

Spending the weekend in St Elizabeth was a very pleasant respite from Kingston & St Andrew, with all the tension of the last two months. For me, it was also a vivid reminder of how enterprising the majority of residents of that parish are. It was a picturesque site as we drove along to see almost every house with its own home garden growing fruits, vegetables, ground provisions, spices, herbs and seasoning. What is of equal significance is that everyone exuded a friendly demeanour, and took the time to great you with pleasantries. Upon the moment of your departure, it was customary to be offered "a likkle sup'm" to take back to the city from their "grung". The Jamaican society would be a far better place to live, and our economy would be in a less precarious state, if more Jamaicans took a leaf out of the true St Elizabeth Jamaican people's book; both in terms of their hospitality and their industrious nature.

Email: che.campbell@gmail.com
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/entertainment/Innovation-and-preservation_7806344

On International Reggae Day and Reggae Sumfest

Groundins

By: Charles H.E. Campbell

Sunday, July 04, 2010


Earlier in the year, I read comments from Johnny Gourzong, executive director of Reggae Sumfest, indicating that this year the festival might have to scale back on overseas acts due to a shortfall in sponsorship. Based on the line-up announced at the launch last Friday, however, it seems that, with the return of Red Stripe as a platinum sponsor, at least to some extent, the hurdle has been overcome. The inclusion of Chris Brown on Friday, July 23 and Usher on Saturday, July 24 has certainly enhanced the two international nights of Sumfest this year.

The re-entry of Red Stripe as a sponsor of stage shows is not only symbolic but a well-needed boost to the pool of funds dedicated to marketing events in Jamaica. Two years ago, when the company withdrew from supporting live music events — "in protest of the increasingly sexual, explicit and violent content of the lyrics" — I wrote that, in my view, this was a tactical error in their marketing strategy. No doubt, it was also a major fallout for the entertainment sector.




Unfortunately, it was a twin-edged sword. As it turned out, the fallout in their sales was very significant — reportedly a reduction in the region of between 30 - 40% of product sales. Red Stripe, for the first time in its history, actually lost market dominance to Heineken, in Jamaica.

For a long time, Red Stripe has been a major perennial sponsor of live shows and festivals. When Red Stripe decided to make a determined push in marketing their brand internationally, they joined forces with the Sunsplash World Tour to promote the product in North America. There are many other such examples. As brand manager Safia Cooper puts it, "The brand and company has been and remains integral to the development of the music and entertainment industries."

Simultaneously, the Digicel Sumfest marketing strategy and campaign, using the Next Generation produced by Demarco and featuring Agent Sasco (a more conscious Assassin) and I-Octane, is a very novel approach which should provide a fillip to the promotion of the festival.

Sumfest is very important in the cultural life of Jamaica. For this reason, I sincerely wish for the organisers a very successful year. Having stayed with this through the thick and the thin for 18 long years, they deserve it and so does the economy of Montego Bay. Coincidentally, Sumfest is being staged the weekend after the limited state of emergency ends in Kingston and St Andrew and St Catherine. I am looking forward to and anticipating some incisive lyrics, especially from our dancehall artistes, in reference to this, and other developments in Jamaica and the music industry.

This brings me to this year's theme for International Reggae Day (IRD), which was celebrated on Thursday, July 1. It was titled 'The Role, Power and Responsibility of Music and Media to Change Jamaica and the World'. This could not have come at a more opportune time in Jamaica. Recently, the media has been doing a very good job of coalescing and promoting a nascent national movement against public corruption and the nexus between politics and criminality. The music fraternity must now take the baton and run with it. As Dr Michael Barnett urged, the music "should be utilised as a positive force in Jamaica, and indeed the whole world".

Founder and producer of IRD, Andrea Davis, summed it up best when she said in 1994, "The violence and instability that have plagued and rocked the nation recently, has left the country struggling to find peace, purpose and hope. Reggae music is one of the few Jamaican resources that can be used to quell the anxiety that has gripped the nation." International Reggae Day was an excellent precursor to a summer of live events and festivals in Jamaica and across the world in which the reggae genre is fully integrated. The content of the performances of our reggae and dancehall artistes will tell us if we have truly closed a chapter and turned a page in the history of our country and music.

Email:che.campbell@gmail.com

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/Entertainment/On-International-Reggae-Day-and-Reggae-Sumfest_7770731