Virtual Reggae Sunsplash Set For November 27 & 28
After taking the decision in May to postpone the planned staging of Reggae Sunsplash, which was initially set for this month, the event’s organizers have made an about-turn, and are set to stage the event virtually, following in the footsteps of its Reggae Sumfest counterpart.
According to the organizers, adjustments were made in light of COVID-19 and so, the event, which was initially set for November 6 to 8, at Grizzly’s Plantation Cove, in Priory, St. Ann, will now be staged online on Friday November 27 and Saturday November 28.
“We are grateful to still be able to offer the Reggae Sunsplash experience to the world. With the global pandemic, we have had to make some adjustments but we hope that through this unique performance package that we have created, fans of Reggae Sunsplash all over the world will be able to enjoy,” the organizers posted on Instagram on Thursday.
“This is a historical and iconic brand that helped to birth Jamaica’s Music Festival Economy. Creatives will benefit from additional earnings during a time where the industry has been brought to its knees,” it added.
The event is to be streamed primarily on YouTube, in addition to Facebook and Instagram, and will feature a special tribute which will be made to the Crown Prince of Reggae, the late Dennis Brown. The full artiste line-up is to be revealed soon.
The presenting sponsors are the Jamaica Tourist Board and Visa, while the additional sponsors are KFC, FLOW, Rumbar, Dragon, BetCo, Clear Sounds and Kaboom. There will also be a one of a kind” viewing experience at over 20 venues across Jamaica being offered by wine distributor Betco will, in keeping with COVID-19 protocols and the stipulated curfew hours.
In May this year, the organisers explained that with the COVID-19 pandemic still affecting many across the globe, hosting the event in November, as was originally planned, ‘would not be in everyone’s best interest’.
Festival manager Debbie Bissoon had told The Gleaner newspaper that the organizers were disappointed, as they, like the patrons, were looking forward to the event’s grand return after 14 years.
However, seeing the success of virtual shows including VERZUS, Reggae Sumfest, and the imminent live staging of Sting on Boxing Day approaching, Reggae Sunsplash no doubt would not have wanted to appear as the odd one out.
Reggae Sunsplash which is now owned by security company, Guardsman Group, was conceptualized by marketers Peter Martin and Associates and local public relations firm Berl Francis and Company. It was produced by Synergy Productions, a company comprising Ronnie Burke, Tony Johnson, John Wakeling and Don Green.
The festival was created in a bid to fill hotel rooms in Montego Bay outside of the winter tourist season, as in those days, hoteliers would have to close their properties and lay off staff, particularly during the summer, as a result of low occupancy levels.
Reggae Sunsplash was held each summer between 1978 and 1992 in Montego Bay at Jarrett Park as well as the Bob Marley Entertainment Centre, except for 1980 when it was staged in Kingston. The festival moved around the island between 1993 and 1996, with one-offs being staged in 1998 and 2006.
Over the decades it featured six nights of concerts lasting from dusk until daybreak, with performances from some of the world’s biggest names in Reggae and Dancehall including Bob Marley, who is said to have made the festival the “phenomenon that it became” after he performed at the second staging of the event in 1979.
In February this year, Ronnie Burke, who was one of the founders/organizers of Reggae Sunsplash told The Jamaica Observer that the first staging of the festival failed to meet its set targets, due to “a cloud of skepticism which hung over the festival due to the then-ingrained prejudices towards reggae music and Rastafari”.
That was, until one fateful day when he visited Bob Marley’s Hope Road home and was spotted the Gong himself, who told him that Reggae Sunsplash could not be the ‘Greatest Reggae Festival on Earth” if he was not a part of the lineup. After some discussions, Marley quoted Synergy a J$10,000 performance fee and placed himself on the line-up for Reggae Sunsplash 1979.
With Marley on that year’s slate of performers, rooms along Jamaica’s west coast spanning Negril to Trelawny were booked out, the event had a phenomenal turnout and set the tone for many years of successful future events, where tourists from across the world flocked to Jamaica.