Dollars and sense of events

Entertainment promoters say it takes plenty dollars and much more sense to stage events in Barbados.

Whether big or small, hosting an event requires the assembly of several moving parts to ensure a smooth operation they say.

To deliver a festive and enjoyable experience, promoters say they are forced to wear many hats as the architects of an event.

Some of them provided insight into the ingredients necessary to cook up a successful event. Costs cover venue, staging, lighting, security, bar service, DJs, and performers, however, many said these scarcely cover half of what is needed.

Owner and managing director of event rental company Making Moves, Dwayne Best, said the average person would be oblivious to what goes into the production of an entire event.

“They turn up and see pretty lights and they hear the sound system and for them, that’s it. But being involved in it, from both sides, you know what the costs really are,” he said.

Best, a former promoter, now deals in providing service to key production aspects, including the set-up of stages, the roof, tents, and VIP areas. Drawing on his expertise in the event sector, he parted the veil to what is required to produce these events.

“Straight off the bat, there’s COSCAP [Copyright Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Incorporated] . . . which the promoters themselves are trying to find out what is the actual formula for working out what the value of your payment would be.

“Sometimes you can do an event one year with a 1 000 people at a venue and your cost would be $1 000. Then you could do the same event the next year, same venue, same amount of people, and the cost would be $2 500.

“Between those, COSCAP is eight per cent, VAT (Value Added Tax) is supposed to be 17.5 per cent, so you’re looking at 25.5 per cent of your ticket costs always going between VAT and COSCAP,” he added.

In June, some party promoters expressed a concern that the increase in summer events would lead to them paying more to COSCAP.

The matter was presented by president of the Entertainment Association of Barbados, Rudy Maloney, who said some concerns were raised by event producers about the cost of airline tickets and the price they were paying to the organisation.

Chief executive officer at COSCAP, Dr Erica Smith, confirmed that there was a price hike introduced some months prior in response to rising operational costs.

In addition, there is a 25 per cent withholding tax incurred by Government towards promoters who employ the services of international acts. This tax is inclusive of the airfare, accommodation, per diem, as well as the cost of the artiste.

While this charge would have been relaxed in past years, Best said it has returned. These rates are also made more difficult to bear for international artistes who have riders dictating special conditions.

“One of the bigger issues that we have here with the larger stage shows is when you bring in international artistes they all have riders and their riders will determine the additional costs. So for instance, let’s say you brought Neyo who was here last year for the Hennessey Artistry and their riders come with specific sound equipment. If it’s not here, you have to fly it in. So you have to rent it, which is a cost and you have to ship it, which is a cost and you have to ship it back, which is an additional cost,” Best added.

Continuing on the breakdown of costs, Best noted that depending on the size of the event, additional costs have to go towards health and safety, ambulance services, Barbados Fire Service, medical services, police and security.

Added to that, he said there could be pressures with obtaining event approval from the police. While Best said this was not often difficult sometimes the notices arrive late . . . on the day of the event.

“Generally it does come, but I’ve had a situation this year with an event called Joubae, which is supposed to be at Bushy Park where we did the set-up and they did not get permission from the police for that event. Then they had to move it to Savvy On the Bay. People did not understand that they didn’t have a choice . . . that’s the reality of the situation.”

There are also the costs which vary depending on the venue. He said if it needed to be fenced-in this expense would also have to be considered in the budget. Depending on the size of the stage, costs would increase if the event used a band, he added.

Costs, he noted, were also tallied for generators needed to power the event. Lighting towers, tents, as well as decks, counters, cups, ice and bowls for the bar area were also a consideration. Included in this tally, said, were the wages for the event staff – from bartenders, stewards and door staff.

Approximately four per cent of ticket sales is charged by ticketing companies who supply entry into the events.

“Those would be considered your core costs for putting on an event and I’m forgetting some of the other costs associated with it,” he said.

Fees also vary depending on the venue, given the required set-up for larger spaces.

Promoter of the UV brand Mario Turton said one of the biggest pay-outs for hosting his event, We Ting, was to rent the space and set up from scratch.

“So you basically rent the space and you got to put in some fencing, the bathrooms, PAs, sound systems, call the Barbados Water Authority to get a water supply, rent generators.

“Then lighting towers, depending on the area you go to do parking, then if you don’t have parking, you’re going to do shuttle service. And obviously, the different licences – liquor, COSCAP, BRA, insurance – it’s a lot of different things,” Turton said.

Portable restrooms also incur a cost of $300, with the number of bathrooms tallied through a suggested ratio of one unit for every 50 to 100 patrons. Lighting towers with delivery included were in the range of $400 he noted.

Using the National Botanical Gardens in Waterford, St Michael, for reference, Turton noted that up to 12 lighting towers would be needed for use in a venue of that size.

Meanwhile, venues such as Kensington Oval, which already has a wide range of bathroom and lighting facilities have become the preferred location for a number of promoters, allowing both big and small players to stage their events.

Chairman of Kensington Oval Management Inc. (KOMI), Damien Gaskin, explained that booking an event carries a vast range of options, each with their own rate depending on the promoter’s wants and needs.

There is the West Wing which hosted the popular Soca State Of Mind and also the 3Ws arena as well as the field area.

“You can be as low as probably $2 000 or $2 500 or up to $100 000 for the entire thing, so it’s quite the range,” Gaskin said.

 “The smaller events probably range between $2 000 to $10 000 and the larger events are closer to $40 000 to $100 000. Utilising field stands, and so on, is $50 000 give or take, depending on what your set-up is . . . it could be more, it could be a little less,” he said.

Other small event venues such as Cricket Legends, charge in the range $2 100 plus VAT for events, inclusive of car park and bathrooms. Considering the full components necessary to host events, Best and Turton said that the financial aspects of the events sector had inflated in recent years.

Turton said the full costs of setting up events were “astronomical”.

“My biggest thing with set-up costs and events in Barbados is that a lot of the service providers we use are small business people. Then, for every ticket there’s a VAT element in there but then a lot of the bills are not VAT-inclusive.

“So it’s like, we’ve got to pay all these bills and we can’t really claim on a lot of these things because a lot of these small businesses, based on how the business thing is set-up in Barbados, they don’t really reach the VAT threshold,” he said.

Best, who spoke on the challenges facing players in the event sector added more context to the factors at play within the VAT charges.

“Really and truly, between VAT and COSCAP, they take 25 per cent of your ticket cost before you even pay your other bills. Where there’s a VAT threshold for other businesses, whether you make that VAT threshold or not in events, you still have to pay VAT.

“If you make $10 000, you still have to pay VAT. If you actually make money from your event, guess what? There’s income tax. Usually, any business making under $2 000 does not have to register for VAT. For the event sector, whether you make that threshold or not, you still have to pay,” he said.

After laying out more of the figures involved, Best said the price Barbadians paid for events was value for money compared to the rest of the world. He marked the business of promotion as “luck of the draw”, noting that despite the added challenges facing the sector and the increase in the cost of living, ticket prices could not be reasonably raised to what they should be.

“There are professional promoters, people who do it for a living and then there are persons who actually just do it part-time. Sponsorship does help offset costs and things, but sponsorship is like a sales agreement, because if you have a sponsorship agreement for $20 000, you have to meet the sales. If you don’t meet the sales, you don’t get that.

“Sponsorship has also gone down, because everybody’s facing the same problem. It’s really a challenge, but some people persevere with it. Most of the corporate events do actually pretty decent in that they don’t really take losses, but the established events generally will be fine,” Best said.

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