BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – TOURISM MINISTER the Hon. Richard Skerritt said that hosting Music Festivals is a costly venture and having just local acts to perform would adversely affect gate receipts, because the event would be lacking the international flavour it requires.
The Minister made this pronouncement, among others, during the question and answer segment of the Partnership and Media Breakfast held in the Ballroom of the St. Kitts Marriott Hotel on Wednesday (May 2y).
Skerritt, during his appeal to the business community, said that there is a need to understand that the Music Festival could not survive without their help, adding that the event’s committee raises approximately EC$4M each year, half of which the government contributes.
And in his explanation to one of the problems being faced by the Ministry of Tourism and the Music Festival Committee, he said: “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.”
He was however asked: “Since you talked about the difficulties the team faces when having to bring regional and international artistes, would you welcome the suggestion that we use more of our local singers rather than the expense of bringing others?”
In response, Minister Skerritt said: “Unfortunately, it’s an international Music Festival. The same 1 500 visitors who come in, they not only come for St. Kitts experience by large, but they come because they are going to be entertained by international artistes who they can see at this low price…So the answer is to definitely not to go more local. We don’t have the large number of local acts who can bring people through the gates.”
He reiterated that one of the criteria in making the annual event a success is that the chosen acts must be able to perform in order to bring the anticipated amount of patrons through the gate.
“I am afraid if it were just local acts it would not have the international flavour it required,” he added.
Adding his view to the question asked of the Minister, Head of the Production and Artiste Selection Committees, Adrian Lamb said: “I think the Minister answered the question very well. The years that we did try the 75 percent local, those were the years when the crowd turnout was the lowest.”
The local acts for this year’s St. Music Festival were also announced at the Partnership and Media Breakfast. They are: Fantastic Thunda; the reigning groovy Soca monarch Delly Ranks; Meeko; rising Dancehall/Reggae artiste Hi-Light; Ashkenaz; AZ’ 1 Band; Hip Hop and Rap sensation SMI; and the reigning Road March Champions and returning act, Small Axe Band.
