Late Opening of Festival Song Entries

 The JCDC 'Opening Entries' for 2021 is off to a late start.  Entries for Festival Song for example would start coming in from as early as November and December of the previous year.  It is now May so it might be a big rush to put things together in time.

Normally workshops for the Festival Song would start in January. We should therefore start hearing those Festival song in June but I wonder if that will happen this year?

Will entries for the various competitions be 'open' this year or we will have what seemed like a selection of songs for the Festival Song Competition which happened last year. Many persons feel that Buju Banton will not enter the Festival Song this year. It must have been very embarrassing for the state to organize a Festival Song Competition last year and Buju is the winner and then he was one of the strongest voices against the government policy for persons to wear masks.

I am wondering if the pushing of these events in this covid-19 time is a wise idea. Note that at least two persons who participated in the Festival Song Competition last year had covid-19 and one died. I noticed that Buju did not perform at the studio show last year for festival song. Many felt that he did not go to the television studios to perform due to his fear of Covid-19.

Persons who entered last year complained that they spent large sums putting songs together and then professionals where just brought in at last minute. One of those affected claimed that when Covid-19 is gone and the tours are on again, then there will be no top professionals to enter.

Poster Announcing Opening of Entries

Note: On the poster shown above, they should have put the Minister as the Main Speaker or just the Speaker but definitely not Guest Speaker. The minister cannot be a guest at her own function and be referred to as the Guest Speaker!