The loss of another Caribbean carnival to Covid-19 was announced today by the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves.
After receiving recommendations from the Carnival Development Corporation (CDC), Cabinet agreed to cancel Vincy Mas, which had been scheduled for the period 26 June to 7 July. CDC’s recommendation was based on advice from mas, pan and calypso stakeholders.
“The CDC met and sent that recommendation to the Ministry of Tourism, Sports and Culture. The minister (Hon Cecil McKie) brought it yesterday (1 April) to cabinet.”
As recently as 18 March, CDC boss Ricardo Adams had been confident that Vincy Mas would go ahead as scheduled, even though Jamaica, Bahamas and Sint Maarten had already cancelled by then. Many websites are still advertising Vincy Mas and have not been updated to warn of the cancellation.
PM Gonsalves did go on to say that perhaps some sort of summer festival might be possible later on in the year once the worst of the pandemic was over.