Curtains go up on Everything Vincy Expo this Thursday

The Geest terminal will again be transformed this week for the Everything Vincy Expo, which will not only showcase local entrepreneurs but also a plethora of cultural activities to mark the 40th anniversary of independence. 

The national expo is scheduled to begin on Thursday with a night of performance from the delegation that represented St Vincent and the Grenadines at Carifesta 14 in August this year. 

Angenela Young, the marketing officer for Invest SVG said that the event will run from Thursday, October 24 to October 30.
 
“On the Friday, we start the official exhibition where you can go to the Geest Terminal and see all the products and services that our local entrepreneurs have to offer,” she said. “We also will be having participants from throughout the region. We have from St Kitts, Guyana, Trinidad, St Lucia and Grenada.” 

Young said that the inclusion of regional islands is part of making the event bigger and better for this country’s 40th anniversary. 

She said that the events throughout the expo will highlight customs and traditions of St Vincent and the Grenadines. 

“During the day we’ll be having events…we will have the cake dance from Union Island, we have the drummers from Rose Hall, we have lots of other local performances during the day and in the evening on that Friday (October 25), we will be having the Miss Heritage pageant which is by Girls’ High School. Usually at Everything Vincy, we offer one night for private group to put on something local,” the marketing officer said.
 
The evening of Saturday, October 26 has been dubbed “Soca, Salsa and Steel pan”, which will feature performances from soca artistes and top three steel pan sides in the country. 

Young said that the Spanish community will not be left out as they have also played a part in “helping us to reach where we are…” 
“During the day, we will be having an international food day so we have contacted the embassies to provide us with native dishes from those countries and we have definitely been having some great feedback and we really appreciate that,” she said. 

The national new song competition finals will be held on the evening of Sunday, October 27, which is also Independence day. 

The marketing officer said a fashion event will also be held on that night where 12 local fashion designers and two international designers will display their designs. 

It is at this event that the winning national dress from the Invest SVG design competition will be unveiled. 

On October 28, which will be a national holiday, “Gospel in Glory” will take place with a number of national choirs taking part to celebrate this country’s 40th anniversary of Independence. 

“We will be having gospel in glory so we will be having choirs, all the different choirs in St Vincent to come out, whether it’s a church choir or just a choir that is there. You can come and enjoy that, because we don’t want to leave out our Christian community out of this event…” Young said. 

And October 29 is dedicated to this country’s musical maestros and will include performances by pannists, Rodney Small and Saeed Bowman, violinist, Darron Andrews and the musical maestro, Frankie McIntosh. 

“On Wednesday we have “from Bequia with love”, where the band, Infinity will provide entertainment all afternoon and then the evening will be the closing ceremony and the awards for all the persons who are participating in the Everything Vincy Expo,” the marketing officer said. 

Young promises a packed programme and said that she hoped “we would get the participation even bigger and better than last year”.