Kensington Oval is off the table for the staging of this year’s Pic O De Crop Finals.
Chief executive officer of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) Carol Roberts, said not only was a private event already booked for the same week of Barbados’ premier calypso competition, but the venue had to be made ready for the 2025 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) season.
Roberts was a guest on Starcom Network’s Sunday Brass Tacks, moderated by chief executive officer of the Small Business Association Dr Lynette Holder. Other guests included Russell “Richard Antonio” Oliver, vice president of the Barbados Association of Creatives and Artistes; Bryan Worrell, president of the Barbados Association of Masqueraders; and Rudy Maloney, president of the Promoters Association
of Barbados.
“It is a competition. So it is not easy to go from a private event to another event that is a competition,” Roberts said, explaining the NCF had to make provision for not only the show, but full rehearsal, technical rehearsal and dress rehearsal.
“The turnaround time when we have attempted to do it has been to the detriment of the competition. That is why I want to go into CARIFESTA because the new facilities and the new performing arts spaces that will be rolled out post-CARIFESTA are important because in culture and the arts, there are very few purpose-built facilities for culture and entertainment,” she continued.
“We always seem to be scotching on the premises of someone else. You go to Kensington, you go there, or you can use it if there is no pending cricket. Or you can use it, but you can’t use certain parts of the pitch and what not, KOMI [Kensington Oval Management Inc.] has been extremely, extremely accommodating to everyone across the sector.”
Earlier this year, some of the artistes, including defending monarch Adrian AC Clarke, complained that the National Botanical Gardens at Waterford, St Michael, which has now become the home of the finals, falls short in some areas, especially when it rains. There were also complaints about the sound and people not hearing.
Earlier, a caller asked whether the Richard Stoute Amphitheatre, now under construction at the Botanical Gardens, would be ready for this Crop Over Festival.
Roberts said she was not sure, since the NCF was not the contracting agency, but they were “hopeful”.
“So for Botanical Gardens, there are a couple of options that we’re looking at that we will use. What I will assure you of, though, is that, again, we are not unfeeling or not deaf to the criticisms of the state of the space when the rain falls and that kind of thing.
She added: “I can tell you that we will be doing our best to ensure that the venue is in a state that it can welcome and properly welcome and accommodate not just patrons, but the performers and the competitors as well.”
Staying on the issue of venues, another caller queried the under-utilisation of the Daphne Joseph Hackett Theatre in Queen’s Park, The City.
Roberts agreed it could be used more, but reminded that last year it was one of the venues for the community theatre production with Simon Alleyne and it was made available “at very reasonable rates and often free of charge to community groups and schools who are putting on theatre productions”. She said in the case of national theatre productions, there was no doubt that more could be done.
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