TT, regional events cancelled over covid19

In light of the Ministry of Health’s advice to avoid large gatherings, many producers and promoters have begun cancelling upcoming events.

Large and small events of all types have been affected. The vast majority of cancellations came following the confirmation of TT’s first case of the coronavirus on Thursday.

The Tobago Jazz Festival, Jazz Artists on the Greens, Dil-E-Nadan’s Everybody Loves Raymond concert and the 2020 Point Fortin Borough Anniversary celebrations were among the larger events to be postponed because of covid19 fears.

Religious and cultural events were also postponed or cancelled, including Children’s Phagwa, the Phagwa Celebrations at the Aranguez Savannah, SWAHA International’s Annual Cultural Show 2020, the March 21 Spiritual Baptist Shouter Liberation Day Celebration, the Easter Goat & Crab Race Festival 2020, and the second annual Film and Folklore Festival.

Theatrical and music productions such as jazz artist Vaughnette Bigford’s Up on the Hill concert, Milwaz Productions’ school shows of The Tempest and The Taming of the Shrew and the National Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert presentation of Spirit of a People: Dance Tan Tan! also had to be postponed or cancelled. The TT Music Festival has been postponed indefinitely until further notice.

Conferences such as AMCHAM TT’s annual women’s leadership conference, UWI's’ international conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering and Technology (IConETech-2020) and the UWI Seismic Research Centre’s (UWI-SRC) Volcano Hazard Mapping Network Building Session were also cancelled.

Networking and educational events such as the Maternity Road Show, UWI’s Academic Advising and Mentoring in Higher Education Symposium, the TT Transparency Institute’s Town Hall Meeting on Gender-Based Violence, the Rotary Club of Central Port of Spain’s Model UN session and the Teen Together Networking event were also affected, as was Creative TT’s and Cariri’s Ideation workshop.

Further afield, Ravi B and Karma’s concert HeadShot, scheduled to take place in Florida on Saturday, has been postponed.

The St Lucia Jazz Festival 2020 has been cancelled, and carnival in Jamaica is postponed until October.