2 weeks Ago By Maria Bradshaw
The man who staged what was generally regarded as a successful show on Sunday featuring popular entertainer Vybz Kartel , says the organisers were not to blame for Kartel’s short performance. Vibbian Fagan, chairman of Zulu Entertainment, said that Kartel was down to perform for one hour but the police pulled the plug on the performance midway. “I guess we are getting the blame also for Vybz Kartel’s short performance, but let’s be realistic, it’s not my fault, because the police said ‘shut down’ and come on the stage and pull a plug.
I can’t plug it back in, you know,” he told the Weekend Nation . “And I believe it was unfair to us, because if I go and I gave the police my running order, my running order is for 3:30 and they asked for 15 minutes after 3:30 and then at 2:30, you tell me I must shut off the show at 3. To me, that’s unfair, because you know that my artiste is supposed to go to 3:30.
“The running order was given to the police weeks ago. We got our contracts and we signed a week before the show. The running order was given to them prior to we getting approval to hold the event.
“To me, that’s unfair because, I mean, you have a crowd that is non-violent, no issues in the crowd, and I can understand if there were fights and then you can say, ‘Okay, I can pull a plug’ but you can’t really do that to a promoter that has that much money invested in an event . . .
. “It was nothing. It was no cursing on the stage.
It wasn’t nothing that would warrant . . .
the early closure to the event, Fagan added, while pointing out that the popular Hennessy show was allowed to go until 5 a.m. “So if you’re doing it to one promoter, you’re going to give the same balance to every promoter,” he said, pointing out that he had also paid the police for up until 5 a.
m. Asked if he would bring Kartel back for another show, Fagan said he would have to think about it, as he decried the criticisms levelled at the Jamaican artiste in recent months. “I’m not even sure, because all the negative things that was said about him and the backlash we got for bringing him, I mean, it’s a decision that we all think hard about.
I mean, to me, it was unfair to him,” Fagan said, adding that Kartel , real name, Adidja Palmer, also expressed disappointment that he was cut short. “He even tried to sing without the DJ but then the police came to his manager and his manager sent us out to call him in because he still wanted to perform.” He also revealed that some of the overseas artistes were detained at the Grantley Adams International Airport for hours.
“We were having issues with the artists from Day 1. The artistes came to the airport Saturday. They were held at the airport for two to three hours for nothing.
. . The church spoke about violence and, I mean, there were other events Easter Sunday.
There were events that started on Saturday night into Easter Sunday and which was playing the same music that my guys would have performed, but no one spoke about that,” Fagan said. “There are events that next week that have the same type of artists performing, and no one is talking about that, but I mean, you talk about church and God, but they say God is a fair God. So where’s the fairness in that? You attack one event, but you let the other one slide.
” When contacted, Assistant Superintendent Adrian Broome told this newspaper that the organisers had not stuck to the running order which was given to the police. “We found that the organisers did not go according to the running order. From our assessment, the management of the stage was not on point and certainly the time that we had agreed on was 3 a.
m. and Mr Fagan agreed that they would get it done by three. We gave them an extra 15 minutes but it really had a lot to do with the fact that they did not manage the time well.
” Meanwhile, Fagan gave the Caribbean Music Festival show, which was held at Kensington Oval, a pass rate, lauding the public for their good behaviour. “I’m thankful that it was an incident-free event and at least 95 per cent of the people who appeared on it did enjoy themselves,” he said. He also responded to social media postings complaining about the food in the VIP section and a video showing a half-naked woman “skinning out”, noting that while surprised, he had no control over a person’s inappropriate behaviour.
He added that the caterer usually worked at the majority of big events in Barbados and had served up a Caribbean cuisine. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment..
