One of the stip­u­la­tions for in­di­vid­u­als, or­gan­i­sa­tions, or firms in­ter­est­ed in tak­ing over the man­age­ment of the So­ca Monarch 2025 and oth­er Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions is the pro­vi­sion of in­for­ma­tion that es­tab­lish­es their fi­nan­cial po­si­tion.

In a re­lease last week, the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts in­vit­ed ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est from in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions in­ter­est­ed in de­vel­op­ing and pro­mot­ing So­ca Monarch and oth­er so­ca com­pe­ti­tions for T&T Car­ni­val.

Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced it is hop­ing to fa­cil­i­tate the re­turn of the com­pe­ti­tion next year.

But when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, some event pro­mot­ers said while they were in­ter­est­ed, an event like the So­ca Monarch would re­quire Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance.

Pres­i­dent of Randy Glas­gow Pro­duc­tions (RGP), Randy Glas­gow, said he was in­ter­est­ed in throw­ing his hat in the ring.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone, Glas­gow said they were in the process of analysing the in­vi­ta­tion. Glas­gow said host­ing such an event would be cost­ly, but said it was im­por­tant to have a good so­ca com­pe­ti­tion. 

Glas­gow, who has been re­spon­si­ble for shows such as the Chut­ney Brass, Ladies Night Out, and the Al­ter­na­tive Brass Fes­ti­val, be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment will have to fi­nan­cial­ly as­sist the se­lect­ed pro­mot­er.

“You can­not (do it alone), un­less you get a hand­ful of cor­po­rate spon­sors who are will­ing to in­vest good mon­ey,” he said. 

He es­ti­mat­ed a bud­get of three to four mil­lion dol­lars could fund the So­ca Monarch’s re­turn in 2025.

Glas­gow said if a pro­mot­er fund­ed the event alone, it should not be for one year but a three- or four-year plan to see re­turns. In the in­ter­im, they had to be in a po­si­tion to stand any loss­es that they might in­cur in the first three years.

Ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er of IP Mu­sic In­ter­na­tion­al Inc, Ian Pan­tin, al­so said it was nec­es­sary for the Gov­ern­ment to as­sist pro­mot­ers with fund­ing, as the cost would run in­to mil­lions of dol­lars. 

“Events like these gen­er­al­ly are not prof­itable. The on­ly way one can get through an event like this suc­cess­ful­ly, where you can bal­ance the bud­get for the pro­mot­er, it will be nec­es­sary for the Gov­ern­ment to be in­volved in all as­pects,” he said. 

He said gov­ern­ment usu­al­ly gets in­volved in large cul­tur­al events dur­ing Car­ni­val be­cause the econ­o­my can­not sus­tain it based on the pow­er of pur­chas­es. 

With shows such as Re­demp­tion and Reg­gae on the Seas un­der his belt, Pan­tin said IP Mu­sic In­ter­na­tion­al Inc is con­sid­er­ing sub­mit­ting their pro­pos­al but ad­mit­ted that bring­ing back such an event with in­ter­na­tion­al sta­tus will re­quire in­no­v­a­tive think­ing and in­tense man­age­ment. 

“There are some of the things that one has to con­sid­er. If there is an av­enue that we can ex­press our­selves, then we will get in­volved,” he said. 

Mean­while, new­ly ap­point­ed T&T Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Robert Thomp­son said he un­der­stood why pro­mot­ers had con­cerns, as events like So­ca Monarch were cost­ly. 

“I be­lieve the event will gen­er­ate a prof­it once it’s well at­tend­ed,” he said.
Thomp­son, how­ev­er, de­scribed the show’s rein­tro­duc­tion as “a good thing.”

For­mer Caribbean Pres­tige Foun­da­tion chair­man Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez, who pre­vi­ous­ly ran the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, told Guardian Me­dia she was ap­proached to put on the show again like she did in 2019.

“A lot of peo­ple are say­ing be­cause I’ve done it al­ready it makes sense for me to do it again,” she said. 

Cur­rent­ly in An­tigua, Lyons-Al­varez said she had yet to dis­cuss the idea with her team or go through the re­quire­ments, but added that many artistes asked her to do it again as they were all com­fort­able in 2019.

“I know a cou­ple of pro­mot­ers and a cou­ple of artistes who are push­ing for me to get be­hind it,” she said. 

The dead­line for the sub­mis­sion of the EOI is Au­gust 23.

Ques­tions on the pro­mot­ers’ con­cerns were sent to the head of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion, Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters, but there was no re­sponse up un­til press time.