KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Lovers of Vincy Mas can one again expect it to live up to its boast of being “the hottest carnival in the Caribbean”, a Carnival Development Corporation (CDC) official told I-Witness News on Monday.
“We go by a theme you know: the hottest carnival in the Caribbean,” Ashford Wood, chief executive officer of the CDC told I-Witness News.
“As you know, from the time the carnival … launched, you would have seen a number of rural carnival activities. In fact, we are now at the high point of it last week and this week. We had a number of rural organisation, I think we had three or four of them putting on events every week. We had a number of private events also taking place. So the build-up to the festival is excellent,” Wood said.
He also lauded the “Vincentians Cultural Connection” cable channel the CDC introduced this year.
“If you are not interested in coming to the park, you can actually pay and see each of the shows, whether it is coming live or replayed,” Wood said.
“With the fact that we are now asking patrons to pay to see these events at home, we are placing a lot of emphasis on the actual production of these shows and if one is to actually go by what we saw at Miss SVG, we would have had excellent reviews and we are placing the emphasis on the other shows that are coming up,” he further said.
“As you know, this weekend we have the calypso Semi-Finals. We have some very, very good calypsos this year. I know the judges would have been very challenged in terms of making a selection,” Wood said of the show this Friday night.
“The soca music, is in my opinion, — and this is my own opinion — is very good this year. It is a great improvement over what we heard last year,” Wood further said.
“And I think we can say without any fear of contraction where our groovy soca is concerned, we are right back up where were before: at the very top. So, we have great music, we can look forward to a great production in relation to our shows,” Wood said.