Bo­bie-lee Dixon

Crop Over in Bar­ba­dos is where we Tri­nis, at least those who are not do­ing the North Amer­i­can sum­mer jaunts, head af­ter Car­ni­val to con­tin­ue hav­ing a good time. The fes­ti­val took its name from the days of slav­ery when the end of the sug­ar har­vest would take place. Crop Over, hav­ing been rein­tro­duced in 1973 by the then Board of Tourism, af­ter it had been ab­sent for many years, is the sec­ond largest eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty af­ter Christ­mas to reap the is­land a hand­some rev­enue each year.

RIGHT: Na­tion­al Cul­tur­al Foun­da­tion (NCF) of Bar­ba­dos cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist, Wayne Sim­mons.

In an in­ter­view last week with the af­fa­ble Wayne Sim­mons, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist of Bar­ba­dos' Na­tion­al Cul­tur­al Foun­da­tion (NCF), he spoke en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly of Crop Over's pro­mo­tion­al cam­paign–Fol­low Me To Crop Over–an on­go­ing cam­paign by the Bar­ba­dos Tourism Au­thor­i­ty (BTA) and the NCF, born over a decade ago. Fol­low Me To Crop Over is ba­si­cal­ly sell­ing the fes­ti­val to lo­cal mas­quer­aders. To ac­com­plish this, Sim­mons and his team were present at ma­jor Car­ni­val fetes lo­cal­ly, pro­mot­ing Crop Over through posters placed strate­gi­cal­ly near stages.

Crop Over Girls were al­so seen at prime C2K10 events hand­ing out cal­en­dars of the fes­ti­val's events to Car­ni­val lovers. These cal­en­dars al­so gave peo­ple the op­por­tu­ni­ty to win tick­ets to Bar­ba­dos to ex­pe­ri­ence Crop Over with all ex­pens­es paid. Crop Over 2K10 be­gins on Ju­ly 3 and ends on Au­gust 2. For six weeks the fes­ti­val fo­cus­es on lit­er­ary arts pre­sen­ta­tions, vi­su­al arts pre­sen­ta­tions, ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions, Pic-o-de-crop (Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch), Par­ty Monarch, Sweet So­ca Monarch and Tune of the Crop (Road March) events.

Home away from home

Mak­ing a trip to Bar­ba­dos for Crop Over is made even more en­tic­ing by the strong T&T pres­ence that has peren­ni­al­ly been ev­i­dent in the fes­ti­val. That strong Tri­ni in­flu­ence can be seen and felt at a num­ber of all-in­clu­sive galas, the most pop­u­lar be­ing the one host­ed by West In­dies star bats­man Bri­an Lara at his Bar­ba­dos res­i­dence.

Many of the bands al­so hire the ser­vices of lo­cal mas ar­ti­sans and de­sign­ers to as­sist in the pro­duc­tion of their street pre­sen­ta­tions, not to men­tion the most pop­u­lar artistes of T&T Car­ni­val are al­so hired to per­form at all the ma­jor shows, in­clud­ing the likes of Machel Mon­tano, The HD Fam­i­ly, David Rud­der, Denise Bel­fon and Tony Prescott.

The Ba­jans are here

Sim­mons al­so stat­ed that for Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day on the road, mas­quer­aders would no­tice peo­ple dressed in the na­tion­al colours of Bar­ba­dos mov­ing through the bands. This, he said, is to make rev­ellers aware that the Ba­jans are here. Sim­mons said apart from the NCF and the BTA there were oth­er groups from Bar­ba­dos, pro­mot­ing Crop Over on Mon­day and Tues­day; the largest con­tin­gent be­ing Pow­er X 4, Crop Over's largest mas band. Al­so grac­ing our shores for Car­ni­val were Bar­ba­dos Min­is­ter of Cul­ture Steve Blanck­ett; CEO of NCF Dr Don­na Hunt-Cox; and NCF board mem­ber Er­rol Rollins.

For more in­fo on Crop Over, vis­it

www.bar­ba­do­scrop­over­fes­ti­val.com