Randy Glasgow renews call for local focus after Kartel controversy

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Vet­er­an pro­mot­er Randy Glas­gow has once again weighed in on the de­bate over the fi­nan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty and cul­tur­al rel­e­vance of ma­jor for­eign-head­lined events in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Af­ter rais­ing con­cerns about the con­tro­ver­sial book­ing of in­car­cer­at­ed dance­hall artiste Vy­bz Kar­tel, Glas­gow has now broad­ened his cri­tique. He’s urg­ing the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try to re­flect and recom­mit to lo­cal tal­ent.

In a mes­sage cir­cu­lat­ed among fel­low pro­mot­ers, Glas­gow ques­tioned the log­ic and long-term vi­a­bil­i­ty of spend­ing ex­or­bi­tant sums on in­ter­na­tion­al acts with­out a clear path to prof­itabil­i­ty.

“What is usu­al­ly the process in terms of plan­ning for an event where one act com­mands such a size­able fig­ure?” he asked. “How does a pro­mot­er put to­geth­er a prof­itable event there­after?”

He point­ed to the lim­it­ed rev­enue po­ten­tial from gate re­ceipts alone and stressed the need for al­ter­na­tive in­come sources such as pay-per-view and tele­vi­sion rights. But he ac­knowl­edged that such op­tions are rarely avail­able in the Caribbean.

“In most cas­es in the Caribbean, it can­not be fea­si­ble un­less the show is done pay-per-view or oth­er TV rights are paid. Spon­sor­ship in Trinidad wouldn’t get you far be­cause lots of spon­sors in most cas­es don’t get val­ue for their in­vest­ments.”

Com­par­ing the lo­cal sit­u­a­tion to the up­com­ing gov­ern­ment-run St. Kitts Fes­ti­val, Glas­gow added:

“If Kar­tel is signed for a sim­i­lar amount as the Trinidad show, the per­son re­spon­si­ble in St. Kitts for agree­ing to pay Kar­tel so much mon­ey will be fired.”

He al­so crit­i­cised the lim­it­ed cor­po­rate sup­port for home­grown events.

“Re­gret­tably, a few big cor­po­rate spon­sors see lit­tle val­ue in spon­sor­ing good lo­cal events and pre­fer these big shows align­ments where the over­all ben­e­fits promised are nev­er ful­filled in most cas­es,” he said. “I’m hop­ing all cor­po­rate spon­sors—small, medi­um, and large—go back to their mar­ket­ing draw­ing board and en­sure go­ing for­ward they lend their sup­port, in-kind or cash, to lo­cal events. Their sup­port will make all the dif­fer­ence.”

Glas­gow urged pro­mot­ers to take a col­lec­tive stance.

“Let’s not pro­mote reg­gae shows for at least one year. Let’s fo­cus and pro­mote, for that one year, lo­cal tal­ent—if your event is tal­ent-dri­ven. We owe it to our coun­try, to cit­i­zens, to love and pro­mote what is ours.”

He re­vealed on­go­ing dis­cus­sions with fel­low cul­tur­al fig­ures John­ny Quan, Paige DeLeon and Hyp­pa Hop­per about launch­ing two Car­ni­vals in Trinidad each year. Sep­a­rate from the To­ba­go Car­ni­val, the ad­di­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion would aim to boost eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and cul­tur­al in­no­va­tion.

“We are the mec­ca of Car­ni­val,” Glas­gow said. “A sec­ond Car­ni­val will be dif­fer­ent from the Feb­ru­ary Car­ni­val, with dif­fer­ent styled events.”

He added that he and his col­leagues are keen to ad­vise the new Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion board, stress­ing the im­por­tance of lo­cal stake­hold­er in­volve­ment.

“Let the Kar­tel dis­as­ter be that guid­ing force to change how we do stuff go­ing for­ward.”

As Glas­gow con­tin­ues to spark con­ver­sa­tion in the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor, more voic­es are echo­ing his call for deep­er in­vest­ment in lo­cal tal­ent and more vi­able mod­els for event pro­duc­tion.