Stewart may be forced to pull band out of Kadooment because of late Crop Over decision

Time is running out for a final decision on the terms and conditions under which this year’s Crop Over festival will be held.

Veteran band leader Chetwyn Stewart told Barbados TODAY that if firm decisions are not made by the end of March, his band Power X 4 may be forced to pull the plug on any plans for this year’s Grand Kadooment.

He warned that a decision not to host the largest event of the season would deal a devastating blow to the festival with implications for the future.

Stewart said some of the proposals placed on the table during talks with the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) and other stakeholders are quite feasible. However, he said band leaders are reluctant to make the major investments needed to pull off the event without important assurances from the authorities.

“We are just being given the go-ahead to do something like a Grand Kadooment, but at the end of the day, it is the band leaders who have to take the risks. So until things have been finalized, band leaders would not know whether to take the risk or not,” said Stewart.

“The issue that we have right now obviously is the time, because if you’re doing Kadooment, you would want what we call ‘pretty mas’ and pretty mas doesn’t come cheap.

“For us [Power x 4] we are not going to risk $300 000 until we know that we have gotten something that we can sell to our patrons that makes sense. In terms of Power x 4, we would need to know by the end of the month. I think that is the deadline we have given ourselves to see what will happen,” the veteran leader added.

Stewart noted that plans for Foreday Morning, which requires considerably less investment, could be made at shorter notice.

“Foreday is easier than Grand Kadooment because I can get t-shirts made within two weeks or within a week, but I can’t get pretty mas made in that time. And not only that, for pretty mas a female costume costs me US$200 and a male costume might cost me $100 or $150. So I can’t risk thousands of dollars on something that I am not sure that I can have unless we have a proper plan. And the plan that I heard can work, but it has not been finalised, so I can’t discuss it,” said Stewart.

He added that an event like Foreday Morning could be held with various bands at different locations, but an event like Kadooment needed to be a large, pretty spectacle. While this might be best for the festival, officials are contemplating the continued threat of COVID-19.

Chief Executive Officer of the NCF Carol Roberts-Reifer last week said various proposals submitted by Crop Over stakeholders, mainly for the Foreday Morning Jam and Grand Kadooment, were being reviewed.

But the details of discussions, which included Minister in the Prime Minister’s Officer Dr Shantal Munro-Knight and various stakeholder groups, have not been revealed.

In the meantime, Stewart said regional festivals being held around the same time as Crop Over have attracted many of the visitors who would ordinarily have visited Barbados. As a result, he believes it is important to host this year’s Grand Kadooment to send a strong message that this country’s entertainment industry is firing on all cylinders.

“The important thing that must be noted is that we must do something. If we don’t do something, we will be in a lot more trouble,” said Stewart. “That way, even if some people go elsewhere this year, once they see that we’re doing something here in Barbados, they will still say ‘yes, I am back there with Power x 4 next year’.

“But if they make the mistake of not doing anything, they will miss a lot more people for Crop Over, because at the end of the day, Grand Kadooment is not Crop Over, it is only the last event in Crop Over. But it is the event that helps to bring in a lot of the overseas market and the $110 million that is generated into the Barbados economy in three months is not mainly from locals.

“We need the Grand Kadooment to showcase Barbados and although we are late and some people can’t come, it will let them know that Barbados is opened up again for entertainment so that they can book their flights for next year,” he concluded.
kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb