Many plan trips to Tobago around specific events on the island throughout the year.
The upcoming Easter weekend has traditionally been popular, as have Christmas and New Year celebrations. Aside from holiday long weekends, events like Island Crashers, Great Fete and Great Race Weekend and recently, Tobago Carnival, have become highlighted as days ripe for a Tobago trip.
However, last week, one such event was officially confirmed to be off the calendar—The Tobago Jazz Experience.
On Friday, The Tobago House of Assembly officially announced it would not host the Tobago Jazz Experience this year.
The announcement that the event was off may not have been a surprise to some, as the THA had more than hinted at disinterest in bankrolling the event.
Usually, by mid to late January, there would have been an announcement of the dates and the headline acts for the various days of the festival.
By February there was none such with Secretary of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities & Transportation Tashia Burris instead stating THA was not interested in facilitating the event.
At a press conference last month, Burris said, “Since last year, the chief secretary was very, very clear when he said that the Tobago House of Assembly would be getting out of the business of doing the jazz event. The jazz event cost just over $12 million to produce and when you think about our Festivals Commission having an allocation of $20 million, you’re talking about a production that takes more than 50 per cent of the allocation for the year for that one event alone.”
Burris then stressed that the onus was on private entities to fill the void.
She said, “What I can say is that there are a number of private promoters who have indicated to the THA that they want to host activities. The Easter weekend is very early in April this year. Some of them have indicated that they want to do activities on the Easter weekend. They want to do activities during the month of April. They want to have activities at the end of April. And we are looking at those proposals to see how the THA can come in as a sponsor and support. But the THA itself as a body will not be responsible for hosting a jazz product.”
Indeed, as Friday’s release itself alluded, last year Chief Secretary Farley Augustine had questioned the sustainability of the Tobago Jazz Experience ahead of the 2023 edition as he all but stated the only reason the event was staged then was due to contracts which had been signed before the COVID-19 pandemic. The consistent losses incurred by the event over the years were also cited by the chief secretary as he said a decision would have to be made concerning its staging.
The THA’s Friday release again reiterated his feelings then using his quote, “What this administration intends to do, however, if we are to keep the Jazz Festival is to transition so that private promoters are the ones running most of it.”
Former THA Chief Secretary Ancil Dennis, however, called the decision of the THA to opt out entirely, as unfortunate.
He said that the event’s absence would have an adverse impact on the creative and tourism sector as, typically, hotels, guest houses and villas have seen increased activity.
“I know for a fact that during that period, occupancy levels in Tobago will always escalate to 80 per cent and above, across all your property segments. It was always a period of time where people in the tourism sector look forward to that boost to the economy,” said Dennis, who also questioned if enough, or any groundwork, had been done by the THA to facilitate the transition to a private event.
Indeed, in the absence of the major festival, there had been advertisements for Jazz events in Tobago entitled Jazz and Music Weekend set to be held on April 26 to April 28 with three events named “Come Een”, “Beachfront Jazz” and “Brunch on the Greens” with several hotels and restaurants using these events to promote “Jazz weekend” offers so as to salvage the traffic previously seen during the jazz weekend.
However, these events lack the promotion as well as the international acts that had been a draw at the Tobago Jazz Experience.
While there were hints the event may not occur, the timing of the announcement did take some stakeholders by surprise.
President of The Unique Bed and Breakfast & Self-Catering Association, Kay Trotman, told Sunday Business while she felt many stakeholders were neither here nor there as to whether the event would come off or not, the official announcement’s timing was less than ideal.
“It is unfortunate that we have to come down to the wire before that decision is officially made. Jazz would have been in a month or so. They would have known beforehand, because of the planning that should have gone into it, that it was not likely to have happened. They should have, therefore, better engaged the tourism sector, the public and stakeholders. So it is most unfortunate that you have to come down to the wire before that (announcement) is done.”
Trotman added this appeared to be a trend recently.
She said, “This seems to be a trend with the administration because they did the same with some aspects of the February Carnival. They waited until the last moment when people would have put out energies and efforts and resources, only to be told that some elements of the Carnival celebration were being cancelled. So it is indeed for us, and that is putting it mildly, very unfortunate that this has happened.”
President of the Tobago Business Chamber Martin George as well questioned the timing of the announcement, although he shared the view that the return of Tobago Jazz to private entities should revitalise the event.
“The notice is particularly late to be telling people now that you’re not going to have it because there are lots of people who look forward to it on an annual basis. But if you are going to have it rebranded, reinvigorated, revitalised in private hands, then let’s do it properly,” said George.
“Let’s do it correctly. Let’s ensure that whatever you come back with is something that is of such superlative and superior quality that you can attain once again, the highlights of international recognition, which that brand ‘The Jazz Experience had from its inception. That’s how you create an international music festival.”
George was pointing to the fact that the event had originally been the Plymouth Jazz Festival, which was funded by the CL Financial group prior to the collapse of Clico. He noted then, the show had been hailed as one of the best in the Caribbean but the quality had dropped after it was overseen by the THA.