Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

What was sup­posed to be a night of high-en­er­gy per­for­mances turned in­to con­fu­sion and dis­ap­point­ment when po­lice shut down the To­ba­go Rhythm and Soul Fes­ti­val’s sec­ond ma­jor event in Buc­coo around 2 am yes­ter­day, just as so­ca star Mi­cal Te­ja was about to take the stage at the Buc­coo Seafood and Jazz show.

How­ev­er, frus­trat­ed pa­trons blamed poor plan­ning and de­lays for the sit­u­a­tion. One at­tendee told Guardian Me­dia the event ran hours be­hind be­cause of a long pre-show and tech­ni­cal is­sues.

“By the time Te­ja’s band start­ed set­ting up, po­lice told them time was up—they had to shut it down,” one pa­tron said.

Coutain and Ted­dyson John were al­so sched­uled to per­form af­ter Te­ja.

The To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion has since apol­o­gised to pa­trons for the sit­u­a­tion.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, it said: “The To­ba­go Rhythm and Soul Fes­ti­val apol­o­gis­es to our loy­al pa­trons who re­mained at the show to see the per­for­mances from Mi­cal Te­ja, Coutain and Ted­dyson John for the Buc­coo Seafood and Jazz. We al­so apol­o­gise to the artistes them­selves who put in the time, ef­fort and en­er­gy in­to prepar­ing per­for­mances for the show, which we tru­ly ap­pre­ci­ate.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, cir­cum­stances be­yond our con­trol led to the show be­ing shut down. Our goal for the fes­ti­val was to cre­ate a mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence and last­ing mem­o­ries for not just our pa­trons but our per­form­ers.”

It added, “We sin­cere­ly apol­o­gise for any in­con­ve­nience this may have caused to any­one in­volved and we ac­knowl­edge the un­ex­pect­ed chal­lenges that im­pact­ed the ex­pe­ri­ence.”

De­spite the chaos, many praised the per­for­mances that did hap­pen—es­pe­cial­ly lo­cal acts and R&B head­lin­er Bri­an McK­night, whose smooth set stood out as a fes­ti­val high­light.

The fes­ti­val, fund­ed by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to the tune of $9.3 mil­lion, has faced back­lash over trans­paren­cy.

Many were dis­ap­point­ed to hear of the late with­draw­al of Ja­maica reg­gae artiste Bu­ju Ban­ton due to a med­ical emer­gency of a close friend.

Ban­ton was re­placed by Stephen Mar­ley, who brought the cur­tains down on the cur­tains down on the in­au­gur­al fes­ti­val last night.