Mandeville looks to fill entertainment void

Richard Bryan, Gleaner Writer

MANDEVILLE, Manchester:The cry for years has been for a year-round sustainable entertainment package in the central town of Mandeville and its immediate environs.

There is the absence of a weekly menu of options where adults and youngsters alike can gravitate.

There is, of course, karaoke at a few sports bars and the Odeon Cineplex on Caledonia Road, which are essentially the main staples for folks here.

Clubs do not seem to capture the imagination in Mandeville for long, so there is only sporadic signs of a lively party scene.

Fatal shootings at two venues here over the past two months, have not helped to instil the confidence that nights out can be safe.

The Mandeville Carnival, slated for Easter Sunday on April 24, and produced by an ambitious group of young investors called The Movement, is one such attempt to fill that large vacuum.

Richard Anderson, a second-year student at the University of Technology, heads The Movement along with Jeremy Golbourne. The organisation will, this year, stage the renewal of carnival under the theme 'Circus Follies'.

It is The Movement's third consecutive effort at hosting a successful carnival event in Manchester.

The show has not taken Mandeville by storm just yet, but Anderson believes this year will be its biggest staging.

"Everything takes some time to build, and we believe we have done that," Anderson told The Sunday Gleaner.

snub entertainment events

He also revealed that Mandeville has a tendency to snub entertainment events.

"People here take a while to get seasoned into things, and we think we have developed it to a stage now that they will love it."

A much better organised event is expected this year as for the first time, the event has attracted a few of the popular corporate sponsors.

A partnership with two liquor companies has enabledpromotional deals for patrons inside the show, while the selectors' cast has been expanded to include both established and emerging talents.

Heading the line-up is Horace Cooper of Fame FM, Razz and Biggy, and local sensations DJ 47, who attends Northern Caribbean University and was runner-up in the Heineken Green Synergy championships, along with DJ Sauny of Exclamation sound.

The venue will be the same, a secluded area behind Fairway Distributors on Ward Avenue - known in these parts as Mandeville's entertainment strip. Gates will be open from 4 p.m.