The Cost of Carnival to Joe Public “Part 2”

With my brief hiatus over, at least from now, I can continue our dialogue on the overall cost of carnival to you and me – aka Joe Public. In part one I broached several aspects of playing mas and provided a relatively conservative computation of the cost. Now let’s pick up the aspect of value for money or bang for buck as they say in certain circles.

Notwithstanding the many well put together power and groovy soca tunes released already for Carnival so-called ‘2kgreat,’ the social commentary served up by most of the tents have left much to be desired. And that is the underlining fundamental issue at the core of a comparison - where tent leaders lamented the publics’ perceived unwillingness to pay to attend calypso tents as opposed to them attending shows featuring foreign artistes - raised in my first piece.

I can safely speak for Joe Public in saying that when we attend such foreign shows, which in themselves also feature local acts, we know exactly what we are getting or not getting in cases like Movado or Novado (he he). Despite their chronic late start times, we are familiar with their songs and let’s be fair, we jump and wave and leave exhausted at daybreak. Not so with calypso tents; the opening nights I’ve found prove particularly disappointing. Oh maybe it’s because we come with our expectations too high after waiting for a whole year, jam-packed with a litany of things to write and sing about. Most times you leave the tents and can hardly hum or remember one outstanding tune. It reminds me of going on a blind date, you never know what you’re going to get. I think the old folk call it ‘jab en sac.’ Now who really wants that?

And so we are now full circle seeing that it all boils down to money. Apart from attending the tents, carnival lovers must also expend dollars on their costumes - which in case you have not noticed – has gone up too. We also omitted to mention events like Inter Commercial House, Jouvert -which is now done via organized bands and there are fees attached to that, after work limes e.g. Piton Party in De Yard and the two mega-red shows ‘Colour Me Red’ and ‘Outrageous In Red’ which have become a regular staple for our carnival.

With corporate giants like Digicel and others pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the carnival pot, and yes we appreciate and support that, it still begs the question, who’s footing the bill or sponsoring Joe Public’s attendance at all of those events?

On a less sarcastic note, season passes are available for other events e.g. St. Lucia Jazz, maybe now is the time to offer season passes on carnival events; albeit tents, bands, side-shows and the like, where we can buy a package and save ourselves a few dollars, leaving us more money to spend at the many water holes that are in themselves a vital part of we mas.

A very broke and badly needing a sponsor John-e-bar saying…we’ll talk again.