THE BARBADOS TOURISM AUTHORITY (BTA) is on board the Jazz’N Barbados ship.
Grady Clarke of Limelite Inc., which is producing the new five-day festival, told the SATURDAY SUN they approached the BTA “a few weeks ago”, and it came to their assistance.
Except for saying “we have not gotten into the six figures” Grady did not disclose the amount of money plugged in by the BTA.
He said it was a “reasonable” amount of money, which they shared with Naniki for the afternoon jazz shows today and tomorrow.
The performances at Naniki in St Joseph will precede Jazz’N De Gap tonight and Jazz’N Up Second Street tomorrow night.
“The BTA has been very supportive, we’ve gotten a lot of logistics support from them, we’ve got a lot of guidance, moral support and a little bit of money. Not a lot of money, but even the little bit of money that we received made a big difference,” Clarke stated.
“They haven’t given it the full sponsorship that we would’ve liked to get, but as we are an unknown entity we have to prove ourselves, so we understand.
“Also there are tough economic times and therefore I do understand that our Government has to be more careful with the funds that they distribute, so I am very grateful for the support that we’ve received.
Money will grow
“Of course we would like it to be more substantial, and I’m quite sure that as we do better and as we get more experience and help Barbados with their tourism product, and the jazz tourism product in particular we will get more support,” he projected.
The Limelite group includes Clarke, Noel Lynch and Elombe Mottley. They said they pulled the festival together in just over a week to fill the void created by the cancellation of the Barbados Jazz Festival, which was announced by producer Gilbert Rowe in early December.
One of the reasons given by Rowe for not accepting the sponsorship the BTA was offering, was that the BTA had asked him to produce contract information which, according to Rowe, was never required before.
Clarke said Limelite did not have a difficulty in presenting such information, because the BTA “has every right” to know how its money was being spent.
“If you’re asking for sponsorship funds, we think that you should not need to be asked to produce those things, you should come and tell your sponsor this is where you are spending money, and this is what you would like to get money from.
And then I also think you have a duty to account to the sponsor for the funds that he gave to you, because it is taxpayers’ dollars,” he added.
