Sweet Limes scrapped as more Crop Over events shift to promoters

The government has scrapped the Crop Over Sweet Limes, as it hands greater control of key festival events to commercial promoters. 

Officials touted the move as aiming to boost production quality, innovation and international appeal.

Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office for Culture, Senator Shane Archer, confirmed the development to Barbados TODAY. It follows comments made at the Crop Over media launch last month, when he and National Cultural Foundation Chief Executive Officer Carol Roberts revealed that the government would be opening several key Crop Over events to private investment. 

For years, the Sweet Limes were free, parish-based street events featuring live soca performances, karaoke sessions and food vendors. They also served as a platform for emerging entertainers, giving younger soca acts exposure before larger festival crowds.

The Sweet Limes would no longer exist in the festival’s publicly-run calendar, the culture minister said.

“At the launch for Crop Over, the CEO did mention that we are not going down the road of having quote-unquote Sweet Limes,” Senator Archer said. “We are rather working with smaller promoters to utilise those limes and those weekly events as the Sweet Limes now, so that we are empowering promoters to also carry the message of Crop Over.”

The intention was to deepen collaboration between the public and private sectors in staging the festival, he said. 

“What we are going to do with the culture and our festivals going forward is to partner with the private sector to ensure that we have the best production possible in the country.”

Despite the restructuring, Senator Archer insisted that opportunities for upcoming performers would remain.

“What we will provide for those individual events and parties is that we will still have the support of the younger persons, the talent that has not yet been unlocked,” he said. “The platform remains the same, we’re just changing a bit of the structure so that the producers are not now the government or the NCF, but we are working together with Barbadians to ensure that we can have the best product possible.”

Senator Archer also said preparations for this year’s Crop Over Festival were progressing steadily despite some challenges along the way.

“Crop Over plans have been progressing pretty steady and fruitfully,” he said. “I won’t say there have not been any hiccups on any project. There are always hiccups, but we are ironing those out and working with stakeholders not only to preserve Crop Over but to take Crop Over into the future.”

Organisers were seeking to blend traditional festival elements with a more modern production style, he said. 

“We brought back some older events, some events from the past, but we are utilising those events to produce a new modern production element in our Crop Over Festival,” Senator Archer said. 

(SB)