Friday, April 21, 2006

BASSETERRE, St Kitts: The St Kitts Music Festival will have a new home to celebrate 10 years of spectacular musical performances, as it ushers in a future with new standards of excellence, professionalism and top quality entertainment.

The St Kitts Marriott Resort was the venue for a media launch of the summer festival slated to be held from June 29 to July 02. At Tuesday evening’s launch, minister of state with responsibility for the music festival Richard Skerritt explained the reason for the move of the festival to the newly constructed Events Complex at Warner Park.

“Let me just say that, that change perhaps was a natural progression away from a venue which has served us very, very well but which unfortunately … deteriorated to a point where it is no longer in a state of utilization for the festival,” he said, adding that the property is also on the real estate market. He noted that the cost to renovate the facility to host the summer event was extremely high and was in fact “a bit of a waste if we had to spend it.”

Taking into account those facts, the reconstructed Warner Park was considered as a permanent home for the festival.

“We moved the festival because we’re moving to a venue that is designed a multi-purpose complex, that was designed with the music festival in mind and which will meet all the requirements for the event,” Skerritt disclosed.

“The venue will be an excellent venue,” he stressed, to reassure concerned patrons. “It will be a significantly improved venue in many respects although it may be a different venue. One can never replace Fort Thomas for what (it was) and in fact we are simply moving forward to a different venue.

Co-chair of the St. Kitts Music Festival Stanley Franks revealed that he had concerns when he learnt that the nightly concerts were being moved. He cited his passion for cricket and his belief that the festival staging at Warner Park would affect the Federation’s chances as being a test venue.

Franks added that those fears were allayed after seeing the proposals for the move which highlighted cost analysis, venue capacity and commercial generation potential, he was “converted.”

The media launch was welcomed by members of the press. It was also attended by a number of senior government and music festival officials. Representatives from Cable and Wireless and the Marriott, two of the major sponsors of the event were present and were saluted for their continued commitment.

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