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Posted: Thursday 29 May, 2014 at 4:39 PM

“Music Festival was in serious financial trouble” – Tourism Minister

By: Entertainment Reporter, SKNVibes.com

    BASSETTERE, St. Kitts – MINISTER of Tourism the Hon. Richard Skerritt, during a Partnership and Media Breakfast held yesterday (May 28) at the St. Kitts Marriott Hotel, said that since the commencement of the St. Kitts Music Festival the team has had a number of challenges. 

     

    “When I became Minister about 10 years ago, the Festival was in serious financial trouble. It was using this year’s money to pay for last year’s bills. It was having real difficulty convincing sponsors,” Skerrit said.

    The Minister added that since then the Festival has come a long way with now having a strong volunteer group that operates with diligence and protocol when dealing with arrival and stay-over of regional and international artistes.

    He said that apart from volunteerism, there are some peculiar instances when artistes pull out of the show at short notice, leaving the group to look for replacements. 

    “Except for the peculiarity of one artiste last year who went on to win The Voice and dropped out of the Festival at the last minute because of The Voice, and who will make it up by coming this year,” the Tourism Minister explained. 

    He stated that many people take for granted that the St. Kitts Music Festival has become a signature event of the Caribbean festival calendar. “In St. Kitts we take a lot of things for granted like in boxing. We punch above our weight and people all over the region recognise it, “Skerrit said. 

    In addition to the above mentioned, Skerritt pointed out that there were also political challenges. 

    “As you can see, this is heading to be an election year and I can only hope that the Music Festival doesn’t become a political football again as it does every election year, where those in opposition believe that it is a right opportunity to throw hot shots. But I think by now we should have gone beyond that because this Music Festival is our festival. It’s a partnership between the government, the community and the business community.”

    Skerrit further added that he remembered when he took the decision to have the Festival moved to Warner Park in 2006 in order to take advantage of the facility, which was designed with the annual Festival in mind. 

    “It was not always well received! Not everybody understands change, not everybody wants change when it involves them. Everybody wants change when it involves other people. And they were in fact three Members of Cabinet at that time who opposed moving the Festival from Constituency Number Three. And even though a decision was made for all the right reasons, those three Cabinet Members boycotted the Festival and refused to attend the Festival that year, 2006. I have no hesitation in making that public,” Skerrit declared. 

    He also stated that as the Minister with responsibility for Music Festival, he had many challenges inside and outside government to strengthen and improve as well as to expand the relevance of the event.

    “One of the ongoing challenges of the Festival is that in order to attract local, regional and international patrons, it is necessary to engage popular artistes who attract media and ticket sales. When you couple that with the very expensive cost of airline travel these days, the need for room accommodation and production, we would run into a high production cost for the Festival,” the Minister said. 

    Skerritt has appealed to the business community to understand that the Music Festival could not survive without their help, adding that it has to raise approximately EC$4M each year, half of which the government contributes.

    “Less than 25 percent comes from the private sector. The other 30 percent comes from ticket sales. That level of revenue has since sustained for the last six or seven years,” Skerritt said. 

    At the end of the ceremony, the Minister Skerritt received a cheque to the tune of EC$200 000 from Lime and another for EC$65 000 from Carib Brewery. 







     
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