Jensen La Vende 

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

Cul­tur­al aca­d­e­m­ic Dr Jo-anne Tull is sup­port­ing calls to reg­u­late the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try through leg­is­la­tion.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) said it wants to con­tin­ue ne­go­ti­a­tions with the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice to com­plete the draft­ing and pass­ing of spe­cif­ic and mod­ern leg­is­la­tion that, among oth­er things, would seek to pro­tect pa­trons, en­ter­tain­ers/cre­atives and event pro­duc­ers.

The dis­cus­sion stems from the flopped One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, where head­lined Ja­maican dance­hall star Vy­bz Kar­tel pulled out due to the non-pay­ment of his full fee. Four oth­er for­eign acts al­so pulled out at the last minute, cit­ing non-ful­fil­ment of con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the is­sue, Tull said leg­is­la­tion should ad­dress every as­pect of an event.

“Event-re­lat­ed leg­is­la­tion will al­so be con­cerned with venues and venue ca­pac­i­ty and the types of events that can hap­pen in cer­tain venues. You see, some­times you don’t like to be reg­u­lat­ed, but then when things hap­pen, there’s noth­ing on which you can pin your­selves for re­dress and ad­dress, you see? Cer­tain­ly, of course, our copy­right leg­is­la­tion could be strength­ened to part­ner with that.”

Tull, the aca­d­e­m­ic co­or­di­na­tor and lec­tur­er for the post­grad­u­ate pro­grammes in Arts, Cul­ture and En­ter­prise Man­age­ment, and Car­ni­val Stud­ies at UWI's St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, stressed that the leg­isla­tive frame­work should not be looked at as a big stick or a top-down ap­proach but as a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort for the bet­ter­ment of the in­dus­try.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the TTPA, she said there re­mains a weak­ness with­in the in­dus­try due to a lack of an over­all as­so­ci­a­tion, adding there is no cham­ber of fes­ti­val op­er­a­tors with a greater lev­el of ad­vo­ca­cy for the mem­bers of the in­dus­try.

Asked if the flopped event, which fol­lowed an­oth­er in­ci­dent where R&B singer Keisha Cole per­formed three songs at a con­cert to the dis­ap­point­ment of fans, would paint the coun­try in a neg­a­tive light, Tull said, “From a brand­ing stand­point, yes, one may have a prob­lem. But again, I say this is where in­dus­try as­so­ci­a­tions and stake­hold­er group­ings in con­cert with your gov­ern­ment struc­tures will have their role to play. This is where one will try now to im­prove that brand­ing.”

Tull said with­out see­ing the de­tails of the Kar­tel con­tract, she could not say whether Kar­tel or any of the oth­er acts should re­pay monies al­ready giv­en to them.