DAVID CUFFY

Reign­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er and Groovy So­ca Monarch Machel Mon­tano has warned fel­low com­peti­tors that he in­tends to com­plete a hat-trick of wins next year. "I must let it be known that you nev­er know how I will ar­rive or de­part but keep this in mind, I am leav­ing with the crowns," he stat­ed in a brief ad­dress loud­ly ap­plaud­ed by the full house of in­vit­ed guests at the launch of the 2013 In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion at the Hy­att Re­gency, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

Mon­tano won the Pow­er ti­tle in 2011, when he re­turned to com­pe­ti­tion af­ter an ab­sence of sev­er­al years, and re­peat­ed this year in ad­di­tion to tak­ing home the Groovy crown. Next year's con­test is sched­uled for Fan­tas­tic Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 8 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

The dou­ble crowned monarch was of the view that this year was "fan­tas­tic," and paid trib­ute to his fel­low com­peti­tors for not on­ly rais­ing the bar with their live per­for­mances but al­so mak­ing marked im­prove­ments in the qual­i­ty of mu­sic pre­sent­ed on the oc­ca­sion.

Pro­duced by the Caribbean Pres­tige Foun­da­tion (CPF), the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion will cel­e­brate its 21st an­niver­sary next year un­der the theme So­ca 21, The Peo­ple's Event. It will com­prise the Play Whe In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion; Dig­i­cel In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion; NL­CB Trib­ute to the Clas­sics recog­nis­ing Ron­nie McIn­tosh, Su­perBlue (Austin Lyons) and David Rud­der; and Fla­vorite Supreme Ice Cream Na­tion­al Schools So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion.

Miss Uni­verse 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam, pub­lic re­la­tions con­sul­tant to CPF, list­ed 21 of the achieve­ments record­ed by the pro­duc­er over the years. These in­clud­ed growth in prizes (from $150,000 to over $8 mil­lion), spon­sor­ship, crowd par­tic­i­pa­tion; cre­ation of "So­ca mil­lion­aires"; and be­com­ing the best recog­nis­able brand in Car­ni­val. "So­ca Monarch to Car­ni­val is what KFC is to fast food," she con­tend­ed.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Tim Gopeesingh laud­ed the suc­cess of the Na­tion­al Schools So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion this year, cit­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion by 45 schools and the re­sult­ing 75 com­peti­tors. He urged the young artistes to re­mem­ber the in­flu­ence they pos­sess to be­come role mod­els for their peers, and to use that qual­i­ty wise­ly. Next year will mark the 13th stag­ing of that con­test.

Min­is­ter of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas con­grat­u­lat­ed CPF on the mile­stone and pledged Gov­ern­ment's con­tin­ued sup­port of the event. Al­so de­liv­er­ing re­marks were ma­jor spon­sors' rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bran­don Khan (deputy man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Guardian Me­dia Ltd), Keenan Rop­er (mar­ket­ing man­ag­er, Fla­vorite Foods), John Delves (CEO, Dig­i­cel Trinidad and To­ba­go Ltd), and Mi­tra Ma­habir (chair­man, Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board).

Pre­miered at the func­tion was a per­for­mance of a new ad­ver­tis­ing jin­gle by en­ter­tain­er Blaxx (Dex­ter Stew­art) ti­tled Fan­tas­tic Fri­day.