The Antigua and Barbuda Festivals Commission today defended its decision to promote Antigua’s Carnival abroad.
In response to a letter published on ANR, the Commission advised its partners to include vendors and performers that every effort is being made to settle all outstanding payments.
It said the Cabinet of Antigua and Barbuda has given the assurance that prize monies will be paid before year-end and all other outstanding invoices are being processed and sent to the Treasury for payment.
“A large number of invoices have already been presented to the Treasury for processing. We thank our partners (vendors and performers) for exercising patience as we work towards making payments,” the statement said.
It also defended its recent marketing trips to London and Leicester.
“The Festivals Commission in collaboration with the Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority, Insane Carnival and Myst Carnival mounted a marketing campaign with over 200 promoters, bloggers, travel agents, hotel partners, airline partners, media personalities, carnival promoters
Uber Soca Cruise 2018
The Antigua and Barbuda Festivals Commission participated in the Uber Soca Cruise this year in partnership with Premier Beverages/English Harbour Rum which fully sponsored our participation. We were exposed to a clientele of over 3000 soca lovers and carnival goers. We believe that this event will also result in increased travel to Antigua and Barbuda for participation in Carnival 2019. We remind readers that a promotion was executed in Trinidad and Tobago in 2017 which resulted in every single trip by LIAT to Antigua for Carnival 2018 being sold out. We expect the results of our marketing campaign on Uber Soca Cruise (which was fully sponsored) will produce positive results for Carnival 2019
Miami Carnival 2018/Zamoni
The Antigua and Barbuda Festivals Commission did not participate in Miami Carnival 2018 nor did we send anyone to the event. In addition, at no time during our 2018 promotion was Zamoni a member of the Festivals Commission Marketing Team
New York for Labour Day
The Festivals Commission has long partnered with Ms. Tyra Mason in putting on a celebration in New York on Labour Day weekend which has over the years produced significant benefits to the tourism industry and carnival in general. We anticipate continued collaboration with the Mason family in New York and look forward to a bigger and better event in 2019.
The Festivals Commission strongly believes that the marketing of Antigua’s festivals internationally, regionally and locally is vital to their survival and development of our festivals and culture and at all times exercise prudence in the execution of same, always cognizant that we have a responsibility to spend our scare resources wisely.
Once again, we thank our stakeholders for your patience and look forward to meeting our obligations with you in the shortest possible time and thank you sincerely for your continued support.”
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Only because you were stripped and exposed by reports of the recent trip to the UK. Putting the cart before the horse as usual. Quit the bullshit and pay neargah dem blastid money jack!!!
I’m not Antiguan and must say Antiguans would be proud of the excellent job the Festival Commission personnel did on the Ubersoca Cruise. Antigua was well marketed and was in your face. I attended their event on the ship one night and the interest was great. I’m of the opinion that this will be beneficial to Antigua.
If our festival continues to be mismanaged and vendors always have to wait for 2 years and more to get paid, the Uber Soca Cruise really won’t make a lick of difference. They always do great marketing but drop the ball on the followup, i.e. providing a great experience to people who visit for carnival. It’s as if they forget that the world can sit in the privacy of their own homes and see how well managed other carnivals are and see how poorly ours is. It’s easy to go have fun on a cruise and see officials from out commission and Tourism Authority and think it’s such a great idea, however the problems we face are deeper than that. Carnival cannot be successful if it is being streamed for free, gate prices are from out of the 1970’s and local service providers are not budgeted for but are expected to continue working year after year. Please guys cut the crap. What used to be the region’s greatest summer festival has become a joke. Service providers have families to feed and their bills to maintain.
Thanks to ANR vendors are getting paid
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