Stakeholder discussions on Crop Over get underway on Wednesday

This year’s Crop Over Festival will be a spectacle, regardless of the format it takes.

That assurance has come from chief executive officer of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF), Carol Roberts-Reifer, who has maintained that changes have to be made to the festival with the island still battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Roberts-Reifer said she fully expected that Barbadians and tourists alike would still be treated to the biggest summer festival on the island.

“I don’t like the term modified but it will almost be a COVID-19 edition of the Crop Over Festival as we know it. That does not mean that it will not be as exciting, as impactful, as colourful, as creative, as innovative as it can be within our current reality.

“So there are two things you have to bear in mind; one, that we are still managing the COVID-19 pandemic and two, that Crop Over is one of the largest economic drivers in Barbados. There are very few events that give you that return on investment where the cost of producing the festival is x and the returns to the economy are over 10 times x,” Roberts-Reifer said.

Her comments have come following Saturday’s announcement by Prime Minister Mia Mottley that the Foreday Morning and Grand Kadooment events would be decentralized through at least eight locations.

Roberts-Reifer said discussions surrounding the staging of the Festival were set to commence on Wednesday with the various stakeholders.

However, she revealed that Government and stakeholders had met at the table on several occasions, from 2020 to as recently as December 2021, on the possibility of hosting Crop Over.

She said the idea that the events be held in different locations had been suggested and as a result, some venues had already been identified.

The CEO admitted that she was therefore surprised by the call by some stakeholders for urgent dialogue on the matter.

“The eight locations are not new. Last year a group of us including the COVID-19 Unit went around and visited a number of locations, did a number of site visits when there was potential for there to be Crop Over. These locations have not changed so therefore, if you are looking at Crop Over within the pandemic that was there last year and is still here this year. Isn’t it reasonable that you would revisit in principle those venues that you have?” Roberts-Reifer questioned.

“The announcement to the press was made on Saturday. They have been invited to meetings tomorrow [Wednesday] and they have been invited to bring representatives and they have been invited if they care too, to send proposals prior, or to come to the table with proposals and it is at that time that anything can be discussed. So you cannot say that anything is on or off the table until you have had the discussions.”

Roberts-Reifer also made it clear that the Crop Over Festival benefited a wide cross-section of persons and not just masqueraders and entertainers.

“Crop Over is a festival that provides a means of living, a livelihood to stakeholder groups other than entertainers and masqueraders, never let us forget that. There are visual artists, there are photographers, there are other categories of performers and then there are the ancillary sectors like the taxi drivers, there are store owners, there are bars and restaurants, there are fashion designers and people who import goods. All of those people depend on Crop Over.

“The rational and reasonable and sensible thing to do is for us again to sit around the table and together come up with a concept that allows the country to host and enjoy and celebrate Crop Over and the season of Emancipation to the best of our ability within our reality,” Roberts-Reifer said. randybennett@barbadostoday.bb