Changes to Vincy Mas 2011 announced

Word coming from the Carnival Development Corporation (CDC) is that all systems are ready to go for this year’s edition of Vincy Carnival.{{more}}

Dennis Ambrose, CDC’s Chairman speaking at a media briefing on Monday, March 28, said that based on preliminary meetings between CDC and the three components of Carnival, they were all ready to go.

Activities leading up to the grand finale are expected to get underway May 7 with the launch to be held at the Solidarity (formerly the Chamber of Commerce) carpark and according to Ambrose, the rural activities will also get underway paving the way to the big show in July.

Ambrose said that the CDC was working on “fine tuning” aspects of Vincy Mas by conducting meetings to allow for the shows to run smoothly and run in a timely fashion.

“This is our festival and we intend to keep it at a high standard,” Ambrose said.

Based on this premise, members of the CDC announced some changes to the festival this year starting with the addition of Ragga Soca to the New Song competition.

Anthony Dennie, CDC Shows Coordinator said that the inclusion of Ragga Soca to the New Song competition was based on the premise that the genre has grown tremendously and that the majority of music released early in the season fit that genre.

Also expected in this year’s Vincy Mas celebrations is a change in the Ex-tempo (Picong) competition with the introduction of a preliminary phase.

According to Dennie, four finalists will be selected to do battle at the launch.

The CDC is continuing work with the junior calypsonians and soca artistes, the Shows coordinator explained.

“The CDC has seen the need to give youths the exposure,” Dennie said adding that there had been a falloff with regard to the patronage to the junior calypso competition within recent times.

This warranted the introduction of a programme called the ‘School Caravan’ where according to Dennie, top-name Soca artistes will be making visits to schools throughout the country to stimulate interest in the art form.

“It is anticipated that this will help to motivate young ones and to also have more young people attend the show,” Dennie said.

In addition, there is going to be more rehearsal time for the young ones, including for the first time, a dress rehearsal.

Dennie explained that this will ensure that the youngsters get a feel for the stage, particularly as over the years rehearsals were conducted in a band room.

One change was announced with regard to Mas bands.

Hugh Raguette, Chairman of the Carnival Bands Association (CBA) announced that the King and Queen of the Bands competition preliminaries would be done at one location to allow for openness and transparency he indicated.

This will replace the process of judges visiting the various band tents for judging.

It was also noted that defending King and Queen title holders will not be required to appear in the preliminaries as was done in the past.

This year will see a reintroduction of the selection of the people’s choice for Band of the Year after a 22-year hiatus.