The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion {TU­CO) wants Gov­ern­ment to give se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to a spe­cial eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus pack­age for the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try.

In a news re­lease is­sued to­day, TU­CO’s pres­i­dent, Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba, ar­gues that the en­ter­tain­ment and cre­ative arts sec­tor must be in­clud­ed in any dis­cus­sion of na­tion­al eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery in the post-COVID-19 pe­ri­od.

“Con­sid­er­a­tion must be giv­en to this sec­tor as our na­tion moves to re­set and re­boot its eco­nom­ic plat­form,” he says. “For the many thou­sands of us in the en­ter­tain­ment and cre­ative in­dus­tries, sav­ing our liveli­hood is the same as sav­ing our lives.  We Want To Live!!!”

The TU­CO pres­i­dent points out that the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor and cre­ative in­dus­tries in­clude “hun­dreds of mi­cro, small and medi­um busi­ness­es; a sec­tor which fa­cil­i­tates thou­sands in a frame­work of ca­su­al em­ploy­ment; a sec­tor that con­tributes to the na­tion’s G.D.P.”, and as such, must be part of the plan­ning of a new­ly di­ver­si­fied econ­o­my.

“This is the sec­tor that boasts of a record­ing in­dus­try 108 years old and is to­day still lob­by­ing for at least 50% lo­cal con­tent on the na­tion’s air­waves (ra­dio and tele­vi­sion),” Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba ar­gues. “It is the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor that would have brand­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go in the glob­al mar­ket place (not oil and gas). It is the Trinidad Car­ni­val that con­tin­ues to lead the na­tion’s tourism thrust in the world.”

Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba ob­serves that COVID-19 has dec­i­mat­ed the in­dus­try, and for­ev­er changed the way it will op­er­ate in the fu­ture.

“In the im­me­di­ate lo­cal sce­nario, the re­stric­tion of gath­er­ings to no more than five (5) per­sons has dis­tressed the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor and cre­ative in­dus­tries. The clo­sure of bars, restau­rants, cin­e­mas, con­cert halls, and per­for­mance spaces, the re­stric­tion of beach limes, riv­er limes and com­mu­ni­ty ses­sions, par­ties and steel­band yards would have its great­est im­pact on the en­ter­tain­ment scene in more ways than one. Fac­tor in the stag­na­tion of the ho­tel and hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor world­wide, the clo­sure of ter­ri­to­r­i­al bor­ders by re­stric­tion of air and sea trav­el, the lack of cruise lin­er ac­tiv­i­ty,” he says.

He adds: “The can­cel­la­tion of lit­er­a­ture fes­ti­vals, sport­ing and the­atri­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, mu­sic fes­ti­vals, trade fairs and en­ter­tain­ment ex­pos through­out the world means that even al­ter­na­tive eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties for our own en­ter­tain­ment stake­hold­ers has been re­duced to ground ze­ro. The many Trinidad styled Car­ni­vals held through­out the Caribbean, North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope have all been can­celled.”

The TU­CO Pres­i­dent says the phased re-open­ing of the econ­o­my, as rolled out by the Gov­ern­ment, en­cour­ages fur­ther so­cial dis­tanc­ing for the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor, which will lead to a deep­er cri­sis.

“Such a cri­sis brings dis­tress on the liveli­hood of all Artistes and En­ter­tain­ers, Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and So­ca Artistes, Mu­si­cians, Panists and The­atre Arts Prac­ti­tion­ers,” he ex­plains. “It brings dis­tress on the liveli­hood of Stage Man­agers, Road Man­agers, and Crew, Mu­sic Pro­duc­ers, Video­g­ra­phers, Pho­tog­ra­phers, Pub­li­cists, Pro­mot­ers, Light­ing and Au­dio Tech­ni­cians, Fash­ion De­sign­ers, flair Styl­ists, Vi­su­al Artistes, Set De­sign­ers as well as their Staff and Ca­su­al Em­ploy­ees.”

The TU­CO boss ob­serves that there is com­men­tary on the mon­ey which some lo­cal en­ter­tain­ers earn dur­ing Car­ni­val and prize monies won in com­pe­ti­tions. 

“We have seen mis­chie­vous com­men­tary on the per­ceived lack of wel­fare giv­en by artistes to peo­ple in their com­mu­ni­ty. We have nev­er seen com­men­tary on the mil­lions of dol­lars that artistes and en­ter­tain­ers col­lec­tive­ly in­put to the na­tion­al econ­o­my in any fis­cal year to pro­duce their mu­sic, to pre­pare and en­hance per­for­mances, to pur­chase the­atri­cal props, cos­tum­ing, mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment, chore­og­ra­phy, light­ing de­sign, fash­ion wear, video pro­duc­tion and more,” he says.

Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba says those who work in the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor and cre­ative arts are peo­ple too, and sav­ing their liveli­hood is deeply and di­rect­ly con­nect­ed to sav­ing their lives.