Xmas on de Castro St. draws support despite controversy
The event was chock full of musical items and dance performances, together with the buzzing of commerce as stalls pulled in customers for sales of various items.
There was also lots of food and drink on sale as persons moved from one stall to the next while taking in the sounds of live entertainment and thankfully very few speeches.
There were performances by the BVI Dance School, Martino Mark and the Hardcore Band, St Georges Secondary School Orchestra, Althea Scatliffe Primary School and a host of others. The Emcee for the evening was David D. Archer who did well to keep the crowd entertained between performances and gave good one-liners and jokes suitable for the occasion.
While there had been some controversy regarding the suddenness of the venue change, this did not seem to dampen the spirits of the persons who were out making sales over two days commencing yesterday and concluding today.
Speaking to this news site at the event, City Manager Janice Brathwaite-Edwards who heads the committee organizing the event said that people need to understand that the move was to bring more comfort to everyone.
“Regarding the controversy where people felt we should not have moved I think people need to understand that we are not in this location permanently,” she said.
“We needed to do something a little different. We wanted to see how the entire family atmosphere would be with the events for the children in this location. And I think after the controversy most people will agree that it was a good change…it was a good move. People are able to move more freely and they are enjoying themselves and I am really happy with the turnout,” she said.
The City Manager said that the number of booths at this year’s event surpassed that of last year and said that there were 56 booths operating, up from 42 last year. “The stallholders feel that the move was good because on Main Street it is a lot of pressure, because you would be buying things and people would be bumping into you but here nobody is bumping into you…you could freely by, you could freely look,” she said.
“The space is one of the most important reasons for the change. Now I am not saying that we won’t come back to this location but I also want the people of Main Street to understand that we will do some other things with them. So all is not lost,” she said.
The City Manager noted that the people out selling come from all over and not just from Main Street. “We have a smorgasbord of people from throughout the island,” she said.
Regarding the allegation that the vendors of Main Street did not get sufficient notification of the decision to relocate the event, she had this to say, “Well, sometimes things happen and we needed to do something different and yes maybe we could have notified them but we need to understand that as a volunteer group we have objectives outside of just Main Street and we need to fulfil those objectives and the biggest of those objectives is to ensure that we assist small businesses in development,” said the City Manager.
One vendor Alithia when asked about the change of venue said, “Well a change is always good. As far as tonight is concerned a lot of people have been coming out. It is a bit different but it is better.”
She said it is much better on de Castro Street compared to when the event was staged on Main Street which she had been a part of for the past five years.
Another vendor who only wanted to be referred to as Tracy said, “There is more space for shoppers and vendors to walk around to see different stuff instead of the tight enclosed surroundings as how it was on Main Street. So the space is very good for us.”
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23 Responses to “Xmas on de Castro St. draws support despite controversy”
Go find yourself a real job and get a life, instead of posting p..s.