Gillian Cal­iste

A re­turn to liv­ing and laugh­ing. That is what most peo­ple in this coun­try are hop­ing for as the pan­dem­ic fades, and that is what events pro­duc­er and pro­mot­er Randy Glas­gow is promis­ing.

The top-tier events pro­duc­er who has giv­en this coun­try a host of mem­o­rable ca­lyp­so, so­ca, chut­ney, com­e­dy, and even sport­ing shows, feels that the peo­ple of T&T can­not al­low the past two years of pan­dem­ic to de­ter­mine our fu­ture.

Randy Glas­gow Pro­duc­tions or RGP as his com­pa­ny is com­mon­ly known is set to roll out a se­ries of shows in­tend­ed to bring back in-per­son en­ter­tain­ment and lift the spir­its of the peo­ple of T&T.

Mak­ing up for lost time, the Let’s Laugh Again com­e­dy tour gets go­ing on Fa­ther’s Day, next Sun­day, at SAPA, San Fer­nan­do, and con­tin­ues in oth­er parts of the coun­try, with shows in Port-of-Spain and To­ba­go. A cast of char­ac­ters and co­me­di­ans like Damion Melville, Ro’dey, Drunk­en Saint, Pene­lope Spencer, and Ce­cil­ia Salazar will serve up the shenani­gans.

The biggest pro­duc­tion So­ca Rewind Fes­ti­val is card­ed for Au­gust 13 and will fea­ture the best eras of so­ca along with sur­prise old school and con­tem­po­rary DJs. Set to come off at the Na­pari­ma Bowl, it will utilise both the am­phithe­atre and out­door set­ting to give peo­ple a chance to en­joy var­i­ous moods, eat­ing, danc­ing, par­tic­i­pat­ing in com­pe­ti­tion seg­ments like best retro out­fits for in­stance, and tak­ing in the arts and crafts on dis­play. The fest’s mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions of artistes such as Baron, Su­per, John­ny King, Iw­er, Farmer Nap­py, KMC, and Swap­pi will ap­peal to all age groups, Glas­gow said. Jazz sen­sa­tion Sharon Phillip is al­so ex­pect­ed to ap­pear.

Glas­gow promised en­er­getic, sweet so­ca mu­sic and a fest that would be far from a “spec­ta­tor event.”

Plans are al­so afoot to give To­ba­go a taste of the So­ca Rewind Fes­ti­val.

Prominent events producer and promoter Randy Glasgow.

RGP will de­liv­er side-split­ting hu­mour in “Er­rol and George: Off the Hook” star­ring Er­rol Fa­bi­en and George Gon­za­lez with oth­er co­me­di­ans and per­son­al­i­ties in ear­ly Ju­ly, and on Ju­ly 16 Chut­ney Rhythms–the Re­turn will come alive at the Na­pari­ma Bowl. The mid-year chut­ney fest will fea­ture the artistes’ In­do fash­ion and dance, and pa­trons will have their pick of foods like cur­ried duck, East In­di­an del­i­ca­cies, and oth­er Caribbean dish­es.

Trac­ing some of his pro­fes­sion­al his­to­ry, Glas­gow shared that though he has spent much time cre­at­ing a per­ma­nent space for artistes and pro­mot­ing this coun­try as a fore­most en­ter­tain­ment lo­ca­tion, his very first love was crick­et. He played with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Youth Crick­et team in his ear­ly 20s along­side crick­et­ing greats Gus Lo­gie and Phil Sim­mons and hoped to be­come a pro­fes­sion­al crick­eter. But he found the game to be “tough”; phys­i­cal­ly gru­elling at the high­est lev­el.

A compilation of past events hosted by RGP.

“I was a bat­ter. You’re bat­ting against men with re­al pace. Court­ney Walsh and all those guys you had to play against, so you had to be on your game,” Glas­gow re­called.

Re­al­is­ing that he had a knack for pro­mot­ing, he de­cid­ed to switch gears. He took up Busi­ness and Sports Man­age­ment at New York Uni­ver­si­ty and re­turned to Trinidad where he linked up with William Munroe, busi­ness­man and founder of Caribbean Pres­tige Foun­da­tion which had pro­duced the So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion for many years.

Glas­gow had known Munroe as a spon­sor of tour­ing crick­et teams. As part of Munroe’s foun­da­tion, Glas­gow helped shape So­ca Monarch in­to the In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy and Pow­er So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tions, which added smoother, more soul­ful, re­laxed tem­pos of so­ca and opened its doors to com­peti­tors world­wide. Three years lat­er, he start­ed Randy Glas­gow Pro­duc­tions, step­ping out in­to the en­ter­tain­ment are­na on his own with “Car­ni­val Youth Fest,” pro­pelling the likes of Bun­ji, Faye-Ann, De­stra, and Max­imus Dan on­to the in­ter­na­tion­al scene.

Dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son that same year, Glas­gow al­so pi­o­neered “Ladies Night Out” and “Chut­ney Brass Fes­ti­val” fea­tur­ing top en­ter­tain­ers and at­tract­ing a host of vis­i­tors to T&T. The first Su­perblue con­cert “Gen­e­sis” and lat­er, “the Car­ni­val Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val” would en­sure Glas­gow’s ti­tle as the pre­mier con­cert and en­ter­tain­ment pro­duc­er in T&T.

Out­side of Car­ni­val, RGP of­fer­ings have in­clud­ed the Al­ter­na­tive Com­e­dy Fest, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in con­cert show­cas­ing reg­gae, so­ca and oth­er lo­cal and re­gion­al acts, the Po­lit­i­cal Kaiso Monarch to co­in­cide with elec­tions every five years, and Chut­ney­land where T&T chut­ney so­ca meets Bol­ly­wood. It has al­so made a name for it­self re­gion­al­ly, and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, work­ing with three ma­jor sum­mer fes­ti­vals in Cal­i­for­nia, At­lanta and Wash­ing­ton DC.

Some 20 years on and with a pan­dem­ic al­most be­hind us, Glas­gow said he takes his role as se­ri­ous­ly as doc­tors and sci­en­tists and wants to play his part to re-en­er­gise the peo­ple and econ­o­my.

“For the coun­try to come back to nor­mal­cy there must be ef­forts to as­sist. Peo­ple need to laugh. And peo­ple we’ve worked with over the years were not earn­ing any­thing–the tick­et col­lec­tors, sound man, light­ing man, ven­dors, clean­ers, artistes, mar­keters, hair­dressers, and seam­stress­es who do­ing up the artistes’ hair and clothes–so we feel we have to take some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty now that the coun­try is open­ing back to put out shows, so they can earn again. If we don’t do that, we will be fail­ing them,” he said.