The admission fee of EC$20 for the official Launch of Vincymas 2023 was not the reason why people stayed away.
In fact, in advancing this view, Ricardo Adams, Chairman of the Carnival Development Corporation (CDC), while a guest on last Sunday’s SVG TV The View Point, said that he believed that the fee was not unreasonable at all.
Last Saturday’s launch was expected to take on a new look, the CDC announced in the weeks leading up to the event.
There were going to be activities during the day for children and a more adult programme in the evening hours.
“We were disappointed with the turnout and there is no way of getting around that,” Adams said on The View Point, though he was adamant that, “In our opinion, we put on a good production.”
Adams shared with viewers that someone had suggested to him that the launch should have been done with no admission.
“But then some Soca artistes would then come back and say that they need to be paid – they not singing free. The security forces providing security, they not doing it for free; the sound system is not doing it free, the lighting was not free,” Adams said in CDC’s defence.
Sure the CDC would have liked to have done it for free, but only if they were able to get sponsorship, Adams said.
“But I don’t think $20 was an unreasonable amount to charge for a show with a live band and live opportunities,” Adams said.
According to the CDC Chairman, there were some who discredited the CDC and Carnival and a lot more who rejoice when the CDC does not have a successful show.
“We know the CDC is…when you say CDC, people get very excited and a lot of people basically come down on two sides of the fence,” Adams contended.
But because the CDC was a very polarizing entity, the Chairman posited, and since it was an arm of the government, if one is critical of the government it follows that one would be critical of the CDC.
“We recognize that in any country where there is a very strong political divide, that any entity that supports one side or the other, is going to be judged and when it’s possible for them to become a proxy for the government then that happens,” he said.