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JUNKANOO BOXING DAY PARADE GALLERY

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Valley Boys were declared winners of the 2015 Boxing Day Junkanoo Parade after rushing to Bay Street amid cheers early Saturday morning under the theme “Love, Happiness and Peace”.

Despite intermittent rain during the parade, it was widely seen as an improvement over last year’s Boxing Day event, following its prompt start and brisk pacing.

According to unofficial results, the Valley Boys won the category A division with 87.81 points, ahead of One Family (85.26), third place finisher Saxons (84.378), fourth place finisher Roots (82.87) and fifth place finisher Music Makers (70.38).

The Prodigal Sons registered to participate in the category A division but was disqualified for failing to meet its turn of entry and for not coming to Bay Street with the prescribed minimum number of participants for an A group.

Colours Entertainment emerged victorious in the B category, followed by Conquerors for Christie and the Original Congos.

A diverse array of subjects inspired the themes for the event, from outer space to the Far East.

In a change from previous years, a live band entertained the crowd at Parliament Square during rare moments when no Junkanoo group was playing in the area.

Prime Minister Perry Christie told reporters he was pleased with the efficiency of the parade.

“Given the fact that I complained strongly last year about the spacing, the lack of spacing, lack of movement, boredom - because there was just too many gaps in the parade - this has been a phenomenal improvement,” he said. “I must say that I witnessed this and I am very pleased about it that they have reorganised themselves and they have every reason to be proud. The gaps have closed considerably. People are not bored from having to wait a long time and clearly it is much more entertaining to the Bahamian people given the fact that it is more competitive.

‘I mean, Colours’ music was almost as good as any music of the main groups or better; one expects that since they have so many musical talents in that group. The competition, getting the crowd to participate, I think have all been very top grade today.”

Youth, Sports and Culture Minister Daniel Johnson agreed, noting that Mr Christie prodded him to improve the festival. He added that the government doubled its investment in Junkanoo this year.

“We got to agree that the last parade we had was awful,” he said. “And the prime minister told me that he knows I could do better than this so I engaged myself more with the setup, as you see here today we have a big screen, we got a live band, we started at 10 o’clock. We were flowing like magic, everybody is happy. We have doubled our input into Junkanoo - not just Nassau, Freeport parades will get extra. We are doing about 20 parades around the Family Islands and gearing ourselves up for a year-round cultural industry that involves Rake ‘n’ Scrape, Calypso and other things.”

Mr Christie meanwhile said consideration must be given to the limitations of Bay Street and more must be done to create greater commercial opportunities from the festival.

“The difficulty that I have to observe is this, we have virtually a (full) capacity crowd and there are still thousands who want to come out here,” he said. “There is the question of how do we attract tourists, where are they going to be? How do you make Bay Street, which is narrow, attract the kinds of crowds which it deserves? This New Providence alone and people fly in from the islands and now it seems we’re at maximum capacity. I’m asking myself, how do we find more space? The government has to boost the seed money for the groups from $8,000 to $30,000 to help.

“When you take their sponsorship money, they still need more money. Every other country that gets involved with its artists being able to get involved and come out at a given time, they are able to link those artists to commercial endeavours and so the question is, these brilliant artists, how are they going to go about making money from this enterprise?

“And there is a very little thin line between designing a Junkanoo costume and designing a dress for a lady or a bikini and there’s a question of opportunities and stimulating the artists to recognise and perhaps the government getting more directly involved to getting them to produce a line of clothing in some kind of form and I think other countries have done it. “

The event was, however, marred by tragedy.

A man working for a Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) subcontractor was in a BEC bucket truck in the Shirley Street area working on the parade’s lighting when another vehicle collided with his truck, knocking him out of the vehicle around 6pm on Friday. He later died in hospital.

“My condolences,” Dr Johnson said about the incident. “We have to investigate, see exactly what happened but it was an accident.”

The New Year’s Day Junkanoo Parade will start on January 1, 2016 at 2am.