Chutney Soca Monarch goes virtual
MELISSA DOUGHTY (T&T NEWSDAY).
The Chutney Soca Monarch (CSM) contest has now been added as the list of events being held virtually during what would have been the Carnival season continues to grow.
George Singh, the event’s producer and Southex CEO, made the announcement on Wednesday in a Facebook Live post.
He said CSM 26 will be a total online/TV experience.
Singh said the event will give viewers the opportunity to contribute their votes to the final result tally.
The semi-final and the final will be relayed live to the national audience on TV and streamed on social media to a local and international audience. The semi-final will be shown on January 30 and the final on February 13, with the results being announced live after the show.
The final will be a full theatrical production recorded at the Southern Academy for the Performing Arts (SAPA).
There will also be guest performances.
The CSM will be free to viewers across the world.
Agents in New York, Toronto and Georgetown, Guyana will register artistes locally in their regions, giving them the opportunity to compete without travelling to T&T. Singh said registration is still ongoing and has been strong.
In 2019, the CSM was held in Toronto and gave artistes from North America an opportunity to compete for the North American title, and to qualify for the grand final in TT.
“The pandemic year might actually be the best year of music coming out of the chutney soca factories of T&T,” Singh said.
He added that the pandemic had created unique opportunities for CSM to be able to create something really special for patrons.
“Over the last ten years of producing the CSM, producers have noticed a trend that has proven that the bigger audience looking at CSM has not been the live audience, but the online audience that can vary from 100,000 live viewers to more than one million viewers over the first month that the event stays online.
“The audience also comes from all parts of the world, with particular emphasis on the US, Canada, UK and the Caribbean regions like Guyana, Suriname and Barbados.”
Singh said there will be a prize for the 2021 competition, though considerably less than in previous years.
Singh said CSM presented its prize structure to the Government and the powers that be and was hoping that they would go along with it. He added that proposals were sent to the Government and other sponsors.
When asked by Newsday about the National Carnival Commission (NCC) not having a budget for Carnival, Singh said is aware that the Government has cancelled Carnival 2021 and that the NCC had not been given a budget.
“However, we have sent proposals and have not got any confirmation from the Government that they will be a part of what we are doing."
But, he said, “I have had quite a number of meetings with artistes and we have got artistes to agree to accepting a considerably lower prize structure.”
He said the prize structure was not going to be in the $500,000, $600,000 or $700,000 range or even million-dollar range as in years gone by. He said he would be unable to give an exact idea of the prize structure until funding was raised.
But he added that given the nature of the show this year, foreign sponsorship was definitely on the table, and CSM’s organisers will be pursuing it.
Once 2021 is successful, CSM’s organisers will continue to use the virtual template in 2022 and beyond. Singh said some events could be virtually hosted, and CSM was one of them.
He added that the local music industry needed to have competitions like CSM, the International Soca Monarch and Calypso Monarch every year.
“I believe that these competitions are very important for the sustenance of the cultural landscape and the cultural fraternity and industry,” Singh said.
