Saint Lucia: Deputy Prime Minister of Saint Lucia – Ernest Hilaire has recently extended sincere apologies to the artists and patrons regarding the inconvenience that they had to face due to the last-minute adjustments at the World Beats event of the Saint Lucia Jazz and Arts Festival held on Saturday, May 13, 2023. He expressed his immense disappointment regarding the incident and criticized the incident.
According to recent reports, to express his apologies and regret, Deputy Prime Minister Ernest Hilaire released a statement through his official social media handle.
In his Facebook caption, he addressed the unfortunate incident which happened due to some adjustments at the event and noted that the government of Saint Lucia understands the importance of scheduling and punctuality, which was lacking at the event.
He extended his remarks and also extended his heartiest pardon on behalf of the organizers of the Jazz and Arts Festival of Saint Lucia to the artists as well as the attendees and audience. He noted that the events should kick off at the scheduled time by that the people don’t have to suffer with their schedules.
Furthermore, in this context, Deputy Prime Minister Ernest Hilaire added, “The timings of festival performances are based on a scheduled running order, especially when it comes to live events. All artists are expected to stick to the order and timings.”
In addition, he explained that such issues are unfortunate and unexpected as sometimes the schedules of the events at such as large stage get affected due to unforeseen circumstances and challenges. Meanwhile, he added that there could be a number of reasons behind such interruptions, such as artiste coordinating issues, technical issues etc.
To tackle such difficult circumstances, the situation demands hard decisions to be made by the authorities in order to bring the show back on track and running, said the Deputy Prime Minister. Moreover, he also stressed that sometimes the issues, whether technical or human, are beyond the control of the organizers of the events as well.
During his address, Deputy Prime Minister Ernest Hilaire outlined that the authorities would investigate the matter and will redress the issues and dissatisfaction caused by the adjustments, which caused forced and unavoidable decisions for the artists and patrons.
The Chairman of Saint Lucia Jazz and Arts Festival, Thaddeus M Antoine, ensured redress and put efforts into making sure that the artists fulfilled their obligations to the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority.
Following the incident, Joeboy (Pondeck), an artist, remarked that the authority of Saint Lucia Tourism has been in continuous contact with him to sort out the matter for fans and Saint Lucia. He also expressed his dissatisfaction as he was not able to showcase his performance in front of the crowd due to the incident and noted that the authorities are working to make it happen soon.
