eProbe | No major events for 2020? - Promoters hope for green light before year end

The coronavirus pandemic has been striking event after event from the local 2020 entertainment calendar, with no clear picture on the horizon of when things will return to normal.

Since the virus surfaced in the island on March 10, a number of major events have already fallen casualty, some being cancelled while others have been postponed, with eyes firmly fixed on the COVID-19 outbreak to see when the entertainment industry could end its hibernation.

Among those already affected are the Love and Harmony Cruise (an annual, reggae music cruise sailing to various Caribbean islands from South Florida), which was set for April 6-11; Carnival in Jamaica – the road parade, originally scheduled for April 19, has been moved to October 25; and Reggae Sumfest 2020 (July 12-18, 2020), which has cancelled the in-person event with organisers considering an online option.

Despite the gloomy outlook, some producers are still keeping their fingers crossed for the staging of at least a handful of events before the end of this year.

Kamal Bankay, chairman of the Sports and Entertainment Network in the Ministry of Tourism, says there are some major factors to consider before one can determine whether any major entertainment event can take place by the end of the year.

“The most critical factor is if the Government allows us to gather in large crowds,” he said, referencing the current ban on public gatherings of more than 10 persons to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

“Right now, the Government is managing things in short increments, so their projections are a week, two weeks, that kind of thing, so it’s difficult to project what will happen between now and the end of the year,” continued Bankay, who is also a director of the Entertainment Advisory Board in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sports.

“So it’s going to be largely based on our own internal capabilities to stop community spread [of COVID-19] and whether or not we allow people to come from overseas ... and what kind of procedures are in place for when people start to re-enter Jamaica. Those things will greatly affect whether or not we can have large events between now and 2021,” he said.

Bankay, who also wears caps as a director of Dream Entertainment and Xodus Band, says events like carnival and Dream Weekend usually get roughly half of their patrons from overseas, and so they “depend equally on local and international support to survive”.

However, he tells eProbe, that the organisers can be ready to go on short notic once the green light is given to host parties and other entertainment events.

READY TO GO

Most of the groundwork for carnival would have already been done, and so Bankay says that with as little as three weeks’ notice, they could pull off the event.

“The costumes for carnival have already been produced, marketed, and sold out, so essentially, the long lead time that you would have needed for that has been taken care of already. So from a production and logistics standpoint, in terms of producing the event, it’s quite easy … . We could execute in a short amount of time. We had a plan in place, so it’s just to activate the plan,” Bankay said.

“Everything for carnival can be done and arranged within three weeks of intense execution. So if we even get the green light as late as October 1st, it’s still more than doable to execute flawlessly on October 25th,” he added.

And for Dream Weekend, Bankay says, the turnaround time for executing would be even shorter “because there is no costume element. It’s really a party that you’re doing, and we’ve already booked all our artistes”.

So according to Bankay: “Dream and Xodus stand ready and waiting … . When we get the green light, we’re going to come with everything that people know and love us for, and people will appreciate it because we’ve been starved, and because of that, when everything is safe, people are going to cherish the moments that they have with each other even more.

“Everybody is going to talk about the first concert or the first big event that they went to after COVID. It is going to be memorable, and we’re going to do our part to make it life changing for everybody. That’s what we’re looking forward to.”

But could this be wishful thinking?

Cultural commentator Clyde McKenzie is not as optimistic.

“Downsound Entertainment has already declared that they will not be staging Reggae Sumfest this year, and I think that is a signal that nothing major is going to happen for the rest of the year as far as entertainment is concerned,” McKenzie surmised.

“If we move into the summer and it remains like this, then the prospects are not going to be good for anything to happen. And right now, from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t seem as if there is much optimism about bringing anything to the fore. But you never know, somebody might decide to do something in December, but right now, it doesn’t seem as if any major event is going to take place,” he added.

And while one may not know what will happen as it relates to how soon the virus will be contained, McKenzie believes that even post-COVID-19, “there is going to be a bit of apprehension for people to go out in public and to be mingling and mixing with others. I personally think that the social-distancing habit that we’ve acquired during this period is perhaps going to linger for a while”.

There is also the flip side, McKenzie acknowledged, pointing out that many persons may don masks and take certain precautions as they go out to party.

“So it’s going to be a function of how the messages are communicated and how people really accept these messages,” he said. “Because if the feeling is that we have to get back out there in order to ensure that there is life in the economy, … there might be those people who might want to take risks.”

McKenzie also raised concern over spending power and available resources.

“We’ve been hit hard financially and economically, and, therefore, people spending on entertainment products are going to want more value for their money,” he said, adding that there would be others who “just won’t be able to pay for certain things”.

SAD SUMMER SONG

Another major festival whose producers are watching things closely is Reggae Sunsplash, which is set to make its grand return from November 6-8 after a 14-year hiatus.

“Even though we are towards the latter part of the year, we are aware that the economy overall is going through a challenging time and it will take some time for us to recover,” said Executive Producer Tyrone Wilson. “So we haven’t made any final decision as yet.”

But even if the pandemic is largely contained by summer, Wilson acknowledged that it would still take some time for things to return to normal.

“I think generally, events on a whole are gonna have a warm time. I think we will still have a challenge with events locally, even in the summer, because it’s not just about sponsorships, but also spending power,” said Wilson.

Consideration would also have to be given to how the Government’s regulations on public gatherings evolve.

“So, personally, I foresee that the entire summer is going to be damaged by this pandemic.,” said Wilson. “We are in May now, so I don’t see anything changing before that.”

And while promoters and other stakeholders continue to watch and hope, the consensus is that things are not likely to return to normal soon.

In a recent tweet, Prime Minister Andrew Holness noted: “As a country, we have to begin to prepare for the reality of learning to coexist with the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19) for some time to come.”

Also, at a recent press briefing, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, Dr Michael Ryan, warned: “You are never going to reach a point where there is absolute scientific evidence that it’s safe to bring 10 people together or 20 or 30 or 40 or 60 or 200 or 2,000 or 20,000 or 200,000. What we know is large numbers of people gathered together, in close quarters, in the presence of the virus, will result in amplification of the disease.”