|
A RE-EVALUATION of the Party Monarch competition is under way. Chairman of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF), Ken Knight, said the competition would be re-evaluated due to concerns among the entertainment fraternity that the judging process for Crop-Over party releases was not commensurate with the genre of music. Changes suggested by those in the fraternity were: putting radio and club deejays on the judging panel; having the public vote via text messaging; letting judges observe the artistes in their natural environment; and creating a panel of roving judges who visit parties for the purpose of surveying the songs deejays play and the responses to their selection. "There is some merit to the suggestions. What I think we might have to do is come up with a hybrid solution to satisfy all. I'm open to all suggestions. At the end of the day it has to be recognized that it's a people's festival and we have to come up with the best solutions to address them," Knight said. "The criteria have been a bone of contention over the years. However, we have met with all the stakeholders, and with the inclusion of the Groovy Monarch competition we've managed to work out a lot of the issues quite satisfactorily," he said. He also said the competition would remain at the Farley Hill National Park. A suggestion had been made by some in the music industry that the competition be taken to Bushy Park or Three Houses, but Knight said: "For such an endeavour the infrastructural costs would be too massive to make it feasible." The NCF chairman also put paid to concerns that the foundation had reneged on privatising certain popular Crop-Over events and were themselves staging the Groovy Monarch competition. "It's not a new competition, but the Groovy Monarch will be another element integrated into the Party Monarch competition to make the event more attractive," he said. |
| Last Updated ( Friday, 19 June 2009 17:26 ) |