Minister of Community Development and Culture, Steve Blackett has hinted that by next year fewer calypso tents may be involved in the Crop-Over festival.

Speaking at the launch of Berger Paint’s new colour chart "Inspirations" recently, he said his Ministry would be conducting a post- mortem of the annual festival, where the issue of the merging of tents would be discussed.

"We will certainly take a relook at the number of tents next year, urging, cajoling and encouraging some tents to combine and collaborate for 2010…we will definitely be moving in the direction of asking and encouraging some tents to merge," he remarked.

The Minister explained that this would affect their annual subventions and depending on any mergers, there may be an increase in the funds distributed.

Minister Blackett stressed that this decision would not be taken "willy-nilly" and discussions would be held with all stakeholders during the Crop-Over post-mortem to determine what action would be taken and how.

The Minister also expressed concern about the quality of some Crop-over music, however, he said generally the standard was very high.

"If you look at Crop-Over, generally speaking, there are still some excellent cultural offerings that you can find… if you look for excellence in Crop-Over, you will find it," he observed.

He said the NCF continually sought to raise the standard of the cultural presentation through its workshops and he urged more performers to take advantage of these opportunities.

askeete@barbados.gov.bb

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