Entertainment

Early end for Downtown Carnival

By TEINO EVANS - Staff Reporter

THE OPENING OF downtown Kingston's Carnival last Saturday night, was forced to take an early end, as a minor dispute broke out between members of the Tivoli and Inner City band members.

The event, which was slated to take place between 6 p.m. until midnight, with displays of the 2005 costumes and a road parade ending at Victoria Avenue, saw the large crowd witnessing only short versions of the bands' performances.

According to Oneil Smith, one of the directors of Downtown Carnival, because of the minor disturbances earlier between the band members, he decided to call off the rest of the evening.

"When the Tivoli band was there lining up to leave out, some members of the Inner City band started throwing things on the Tivoli band members. Some of the Tivoli band members then retaliated," Smith explained.

However, Smith said that had it not been for that isolated incident, everything would have gone well.

"Even the Digicel music truck was there to play music, but they left after the incident. I didn't like the vibes, so I cancelled the whole evening," Smith said.

Smith, however, remains hopeful that this incident will not deter the sponsors from continuing to support Downtown Carnival this year as things are expected to still go well.

"It has been five years since we have been keeping Downtown Carnival, and it is the first time that anything like this happened. The carnival is bigger than that, and a few indisciplined persons will not stop Downtown Carnival from happening," Smith assured.

Main sponsors, Digicel, however, said that despite the incident, they are still on board.

"We are definitely still in support of Downtown Carnival, but we will be speaking to the organisers to ensure that such an incident does not occur again," said Sheryl Simpson, marketing communications specialist for Digicel.

If all goes well, Smith says patrons can turn out this Saturday night when they will have the carnival, after which, every Saturday until the 26th of March, they will be having Saturday night lime, where persons can come out, party, and view the costumes.