Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

With many artistes strug­gling to sur­vive, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) yes­ter­day made a des­per­ate ap­peal to the Gov­ern­ment for the events and en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor to be re­opened, at least to vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple.

The call was made dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, high­light­ing the strug­gles artistes, pro­mot­ers and oth­ers in the sec­tor have been fac­ing since it was closed two years ago due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

TTPA pres­i­dent Jerome Pre­cil­la said the an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that there may be some as­pect of Car­ni­val lat­er in the year has still brought lit­tle hope to the sec­tor. In­stead, he said the group wants the Gov­ern­ment to give the green light for Car­ni­val 2023 and have the sec­tor re­opened for vac­ci­nat­ed events on­ly.

“If Car­ni­val is so much of an im­por­tant prod­uct to the tourism of Trinidad and To­ba­go, it should be giv­en way more at­ten­tion and de­ci­sions should be made way ear­li­er be­cause for us to put on any sem­blance or taste of Car­ni­val in six weeks’ time is ab­surd,” Pre­cil­la said.

He said many of his mem­bers were strug­gling to make ends meet and they were ap­peal­ing to re­sume in some way to earn a liveli­hood.

“This is a cry for our sec­tor to re­open, not we want a hand­out, or we want some­thing, we want the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work, to get back out there and do what we do to earn an in­come to mine our fam­i­lies, to put food on the ta­ble. ... This is a sec­tor that pro­vides an in­come, a rev­enue for peo­ple to live for our liveli­hoods and our liveli­hoods have been put on halt for two years,” he said.

Em­pha­sis­ing that the sec­tor was not all about “wine and jam,” Pre­cil­la said all they want is the op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn a liv­ing once again.

“The mas pro­duc­ers have to pro­duce their cos­tumes so they could have band launch sea­son in June. They would have to start im­port­ing prod­ucts and de­sign­ing so all these things will have to start hap­pen­ing from now,” he said.

He lament­ed that the coun­try’s vac­ci­na­tion rate has not been in­creas­ing fast enough to achieve the goals they are seek­ing.

“If I was go­ing to take my vac­cine in or­der to go to a par­ty or to go to an event and you telling me that can­not hap­pen, then I am go­ing to ask my­self, well then what I get­ting the vac­cine for be­cause if the whole promise is that okay, it is go­ing to help you get back on with life ... but for our event sec­tor, we are not go­ing on with our lives,” he said.

How­ev­er, he said he be­lieves re­sum­ing ac­tiv­i­ty in the sec­tor will en­cour­age more peo­ple to get vac­ci­nat­ed.

TTPA ad­vo­cate Paige De Leon said the group has ex­haust­ed the con­sul­ta­tive process with Gov­ern­ment and Min­istry of Health over the safe re­open­ing of the sec­tor. She claimed what is be­ing pro­posed to the as­so­ci­a­tion will on­ly ben­e­fit a few.

“It has been on­go­ing for many, many months. What is be­ing pro­posed is no dif­fer­ent from what was ob­tained one year ago. We have made no progress,’ de Leon said.

“Five weeks to the end of the Car­ni­val 2022 sea­son, we are not in a po­si­tion to col­lab­o­rate in gen­er­al with the plans that were pre­sent­ed to us. It is the point of the mem­bers of the TTPA that it is too lit­tle too late. The Car­ni­val 2022 ship has sailed. What has been pro­posed on­ly ben­e­fits those who get gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tions and fall un­der the arm of the fi­nan­cial pro­tec­tion of the state and we do not.”

De Leon not­ed that the group has nev­er been ben­e­fi­cia­ries of gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tions and they do not in­tend to start now.

How­ev­er, she said it is time for new sys­tems, as the old ones are no longer work­ing.

“We ask that the pri­vate sec­tor, as part of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic land­scape, the sec­tor be opened to vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple, not for a short few weeks to fa­cil­i­tate state-spon­sored events at state-owned venues but so the busi­ness of events can be­gin again with vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons,” she sug­gest­ed.

“We ask for vac­ci­nat­ed on­ly out­door events to re­sume. It is ac­cept­ed that out­door gath­er­ing is much safer than in­door gath­er­ing, so we are con­fused about the mo­ti­va­tion here and ask for clar­i­ty on the reck­on­ing of this pol­i­cy,” she added.

The TTPA point­ed out that coun­tries like Bar­ba­dos and St Lu­cia, which have health sec­tors and vac­ci­na­tion rates sim­i­lar to T&T, have “suc­cess­ful­ly and safe­ly” re­opened their en­ter­tain­ment sec­tors and asked why T&T was not will­ing to at least start “small.”

Blaxx: Most dif­fi­cult time I’ve ever faced

Mean­while, vet­er­an so­ca artiste Dex­ter ‘Blaxx’ Stew­art said he is now sell­ing his per­son­al as­sets to get mon­ey to sur­vive.

“On one hand, the pan­dem­ic give me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to know who is my big daugh­ter boyfriend, work with the kids, spend more time home and on the oth­er hand, this thing was dev­as­tat­ing man,” Stew­art said.

“It was re­al­ly dev­as­tat­ing. Right now, I have a Mac­book, any­one want a lap­top com­put­er to buy? I does just sell out stuff to make ends meet.”

Ac­cord­ing to him, pro­duc­ers are now bar­ter­ing their skills and are no longer look­ing for mon­ey up front. This, he said, is how he’s able to record.

He said old­er artistes like him­self have not been able to get gigs abroad and it is not fi­nan­cial­ly fea­si­ble to host vir­tu­al events.

“A lot of peo­ple talk about artiste could go out­side and earn mon­ey. It is not so for every artiste. It is very, very hard some­times for the artistes who are ma­ture and the artistes that are do­ing well to find jobs,” he lament­ed.

Say­ing it was a harsh time for all in the sec­tor, Stew­art al­so called for its re­open­ing with small num­bers of pa­trons ini­tial­ly.

“This pan­dem­ic is not go­ing nowhere. Man, this is one of the most dif­fi­cult times I have ever faced in my life and is good to see we mak­ing ef­fort as a body,” he said.