Tonight, 20 artistes will present their best possible performances to audiences at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in a tighter, more compact and better produced International Soca Monarch Competition.
The artistes, who hail from T&T, Barbados, St Lucia and Grenada, are the creme de la creme of hundreds of entrants to the popular annual competition on Fantastic Friday seeking to dethrone reigning Groovy Monarch Olatunji Yearwood.
Over the years, the competition has earned a reputation of beginning the Carnival revelry, which continues with parties until J’Ouvert morning and ends with Tuesday mas through the nation’s streets.
From the inception of the International Soca Monarch in 1993 to the last event in 2015, there has always been a clear favourite, with very few surprises in between.
Super Blue (Austin Lyons) reigned from inception until 2000, then came the toss-up between Bunji Garlin (Ian Alvarez) and Iwer George from 2002 to 2008.
In 2009, Fay Ann Lyons-Alvarez’s win was predictable and Machel Montano’s most recent five-year domination wasn’t a surprise.
Today this changes as in addition to a promise of tighter performances, a more compact show and an improved broadcast product, the competition is also the most unpredictable.
Chairman of the Caribbean Prestige Foundation for the Performing Arts (CPF), Peter Scoon, in an interview yesterday said over the
last few years CPF had been trying to improve the overall quality of the show.
Once led by founder of the competition, William Munro, the show has introduced some of the most notable soca artistes to international audiences.
“Over the last couple years we have been trying to improve the quality of the broadcast and the look and feel of the show.
“We have been successful with the stage and having the stage look spectacular and with the quality of the broadcast, particularly last year when we had high quality cameras,” Scoon added.
He said problems with the flow of performances were addressed for tonight’s show.
In addition to a decreased number of competitors and the combination of the soca sub genres of Groovy and Power into one category, technical issues were also being addressed.
“Over the years we had different bands coming to support the artistes, so we will have one band to cut down on time,” Scoon added.
He said there had been a changing of the guards.
“The younger ones are writing and performing excellent pieces.
“This year we have 20 top songs, where before there would be ten top and 15 mediocre. This year we have 20 and of those 20 anyone can win and we expect everybody to put out a serious effort to win,” he added.
He said for international audiences, the organisers were experimenting with improvements for the pay per view and would continue to develop it.
This year the show will be broadcast the next day as a packaged product on CNC3 when the winners will be announced.
Tonight, gates open at seven with a pre-show at 9 pm.
The actual competition starts at 10 pm and will be followed by a one-hour performance by Machel Montano.
“It’s (soca monarch) a national treasure. It is the event that promotes the soca and soca is so important to T&T,” Scoon said.