By: Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 14th December 2018)- The 2019 edition of the annual St.Kitts Music Festival will be staged at the Kim Collins Athletic Stadium located at Bird Rock-moving away from Warner Park- which comes as one of the new changes for the yearly extravaganza.
Such detail was revealed last Friday (6th December) during a press conference for the unveiling of the first wave of artistes during a ceremony held at the Ocean Terrace Inn (OTI) located at Fortlands which comes some seven months ahead of the three-nightly concerts slated to take place 26th to 30th June.
Four acts have been announced namely: Legendary American R&B and Soul singer Smokey Robinson, American-Nigerian entertainer Davido, Jamaican dancehall entertainer Popcaan and Moroccan-American rapper French Montana.
Chairman of the Artiste Selection Committee Jonel Powell, who made the announcement, commented that “…We’re confident that the slate of artistes that we have come up for you in 2019 will certainly top this year.”
He also told that announced as so far line-up “will attract just about everybody to the new venue for 2019 regardless of age, regardless of genres that you like…”
With the exception of Popcaan, the other acts will be making debut performances in the Federation.
As it relates to the new venue, Festival Chairman Damion Hobson outlined that a few new changes will be made for 2019 with the new venue being the main one.
“The 2019 St.Kitts Music festival will be hosted at the Kim Collins Athletic Stadium. Trust me when I tell you the layout will be awesome. More effort would be made to ensure that no patron is disadvantaged when it comes to their preferred style of viewing the performances, and we intend to be more sensitive to the needs of those that may special needs of those who may be differently abled.”
According to him: “I again promise for 2019, we’ll have an even better venue layout to cater to all groups including those who wish to sit and view the performances.
As to what has led to the change of venue, the Music Festival official remarked: “Based on the artiste that we have announced today and who we will announce in January, we felt that we needed a bigger venue. On top of that, there is cricket as well in June 2019 and already we were being pushed to the football field [at Warner Park which is] just an absolute no no. In terms of the Kims Collins Stadium, there are a number of advantages; it’s a much bigger venue, we would be able to control how much space we want on the ground.”
He also talked about better viewing from the stands and wheelchair access.
Hobson said that the upcoming festival “will see the performances of different genres lasting up to an hour and a half.”
He added: “We’ll also feature artistes who cater to the fancies of all Music Festival goers- the young, the mature and all others and again I assure you that in January we will present a great new New Year’s gift to all fans when we make our final announcements.”
Hobson recalled the early release announcement in December 2017 for the 2018 production indicating that the most recent announcement comes as the committee breaking its own record.