Artistes hoping for return of performance fee

Entertainers are welcoming the return of the Crop Over festival, but are hoping that there will be a better spread of the prizes for the Pic-o-de-Crop Competition.

President of the Barbados Association of Creatives and Artistes (BACA) Sean Apache Carter said the association hopes that once again this year, finalists in the Pic-o-de-Crop Competition will benefit from the $2 000 contribution to assist with preparations for their performances.

However, Carter said that while traditionally only the artistes placing in the top three positions were given generous prizes, those trailing behind are often left saddled with the burden of meeting production expenses.

“It’s a big expense to put on a quality show at the finals of Pic-o-de-Crop. Unfortunately there is no Soca Monarch in the traditional sense and the wording that was used is that it would be more like a People’s Choice Soca Monarch this year. We like the performance fee and the spread of money for the artistes in that soca competition,” he said.

Twenty artistes in the People’s Choice Soca Monarch competition will receive a performance fee of $4 000. But Carter said the association is concerned that an artiste who does not produce high-quality music, would be judged the same way as a professional who takes their craft seriously, which may lead to concerns with the end results.

Carter said BACA hopes that the People’s Choice Soca Monarch competition will be properly monitored this year, and will not necessarily be the way forward for that competition.

“From those perspectives which speak directly to the members of BACA, we are happy there is a Crop Over and we are happy to see the return of the Pic-O-De-Crop competition. We are happy with the spread of money for the soca monarch initiative that they have this year but the judging process is our concern.

“We had two main issues at the beginning of our consultations with the NCF [National Cultural Foundation] and the Ministry of [Culture] and that was as it relates to the vaccine mandate. There was a vaccine mandate in December when the entertainment industry was opened back up.

“We were the only industry that had a mandate attached to us. So, we requested for that mandate to be removed and for there to be an either or – you are there fully vaccinated or you present the PCR test. So, we were very happy that the Ministry of Health and the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit agreed to remove the mandate on the entertainment industry and on entertainers in particular,” Carter said.

The association president said the entertainers also welcome the move to allow artistes with a negative PCR test result taken 24 hours before attending an event to have those remain valid for 48 hours.

He explained that several artistes perform multiple times in one week during the Crop Over season and would have had to have numerous PCR tests done if it was mandated that they provide a negative result before each event.

“That would have been a bit much over a six to eight-week period. Officially, Crop Over is six weeks but events will start before that and there will probably be a few after Crop Over fetes and stuff like that. So again, that was a change that we were very pleased with. And we thank the Ministry of Culture and the NCF because they are the ones who will pay for staff and the entertainers for the COVID-19 Rapid Test,” he said. (AH)