Bridgetown.
The bookings for this year Crop Over Festival are so high that the Barbados Tourism Authority has asked some airlines to add flights for the island's leading cultural event.
This was revealed by Chief Executive Officer of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) Cranston Browne.
“So the flights are heavily booked, and we are expecting very good visitor turn out at these events,” Browne said at a press conference to launch the Neal & Massy Pan Pun De Sand at Weisers on Brandons Beach.
He said the BTA had been marketing the festival throughout the diaspora and for foreign visitors.
“And the way they are pitching it, is to ‘come for pan weekend.’ So we are actually now moving to a stage where we are selling festivals within the festival, or niches. For instance, the month of June was our Heritage Month; so they sold the month of June as heritage. So (if) you like the historical aspects of our culture, you would come to the island in June", Browne said.
'iThen you would move to the pan for the middle of July, and you would come for that weekend if you are pan enthusiast; and then for the final weekend, you come for the kaiso,” he explained.
The CEO said packaging the festival that way had worked, “and the bookings for Crop-Over are very, very high. I think in fact, the BTA is actually asking some of our airlines to put on some extra flights.”
He rejected suggestions that the local turn out at some of the major competitions would decline, due to the absence of “star power” from crowd- appealers such as Red Plastic Bag, Lil’ Rick, Edwin Yearwood and Gabby.
Browne reasoned that the music, which he said was sweet enough, would compensate for those crowd favourites missing from the Pic-O-De- Crop contest. He believed the Sweet Soca and Party Monarch competitions would draw massive crowds with acts like Mikey and Blood.
The NCF chief noted that the absence of those performers would make way for other top artists to emerge. He suggested there was not always a Lil’ Rick and people still turned out in their numbers. So as far as he was concerned, music was dynamic and continued to evolve.
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