Grand Kadooment bands are struggling to get their 2022 productions on the road due to limited sponsorship.President of the Barbados Association of Masqueraders (BAM) Anthony Layne, who described the situation as “dire” at this time, told Barbados TODAY that while the $10 000 subvention from the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) for each eligible band has helped, corporate Barbados has not been forthcoming with sponsorship.Criticising the unwillingness of some companies to assist, Layne said that should not be the case since all businesses benefit from the Crop Over Festival.“This is not just about the bands, this is about Barbados. This is about putting on a spectacle, and when the planes come here in the droves as has happened in 2019 and 2018 and 2017, all aspects of business in Barbados gained from it . . . . So that is where we want to get back to,” he said.Layne noted that over the years, sponsorship in Barbados has significantly fallen which is not the case in some other Caribbean islands where, he said, “there is an influx of sponsorship . . . from corporate businesses”.
