Stakeholders give advice after Carnival launch

Various groups with a stake in Antigua’s Carnival have made several recommendations to the Antigua & Barbuda Festivals Commission regarding the staging of events for this year’s 60th anniversary.
They shared their views after the commission launched Carnival 2017,  under the theme “Celebrate Greatness” on Saturday.
One vendor told OBSERVER media she is not pleased that the organisers have not moved Children’s Carnival back to Sunday, from Thursday.
“If you notice, with the Children’s Carnival, it was slow in the afternoon until later in the evening whereas if it was a Sunday, everybody would get something in the earlies,” she said, reflecting on the Children’s Carnival event which was held on a Thursday last year.
She reasoned that parents would have more time to dedicate to family for the event on a Sunday rather than on the working day.
“I would have moved Children’s Carnival back to the Sunday and bring Jaycee’s [Queen Show] to the Thursday. Why? Parents are still working on Thursday [but] on Sunday, nobody has anything to do so they bring the kids out and it’s a family affair,” the vendor explained.
Another vendor who commented on the launch, said she was hoping to see a much larger crowd in the early afternoon on Saturday.
She said this is the second year she set up her food stall for a launch of this nature and the afternoon turned out to be slow.
(More in today’s Daily Observer)