Mindful of the cancellation of a number of fetes and a decreased number of attendants to certain events for this Carnival season, soca super couple Ian Alvarez (Bunji Garlin) and Fayann Lyons-Alvarez have decided to hold their annual children’s show in Arima for free.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Lyons-Alvarez said the event, held on Carnival Saturday in Arima, which was usually something paid for by parents would be their gift to children this Carnival.
She said: “It’s always been paid for by the parents of the children who buy the tickets.
“We have been to a number of the fetes ourselves and we saw a number cancelled and we realised that money is an issue for a lot of families so rather than cancelling the children show we decided to do it for free.”
Lyons-Alvarez said there was a decrease in crowds at a lot of events this season.
“We see it because we are on the stage and we spoke to some of the promoters and there has been a decrease in attendance in terms of people.
“We know a lot of people are feeling it with respect to the events,” she added.
Lyons-Alvarez said since the word “recession” had popped up in terms of the country’s economic situation people have been conservative with their spending.
She said the show was very dear to her family and so their team had to make certain adjustments.
“It isn’t a money-making venture for us. We usually hire artistes but this year we are not contractually hiring anyone but we do have artistes friends who said they would come through.”
“We have GBM, TC, Teddyson John, TC, Drue and others,” she added.
She said the show was also a mechanism to give young, upcoming artistes a space to perform.
“We pick kids from the audience to come up and entertain us. We have dancers and there was a girl like young Bunji. She freestyled and she was in primary school. A lot of parents ask for their kids to perform.”
She recalled memories of going to watch mas on the street as there was no space for children to see artistes when she was younger.
She said: “Bunji grew up in the church but I remember going out on the streets to watch mas. We didn’t have an actual event to go to see all the artistes. It’s a way for the kids to meet the artistes who they love for Carnival.
“It’s also a nice way for artistes to interact with the kids who will grow up and pay to watch them in fetes.”