Factors Affecting Attendance at Oistins Fish Festival: Easter Timing and Competition from Other Events

The timing of Easter in the calendar and other competing events over the holiday weekend are being blamed for fewer patrons attending this year’s Oistins Fish Festival.

According to the festival’s co-chair Nikita Gibson, as a result of the smaller crowds, vendors reported lower sales.

“Easter this year was actually much earlier than it would be, and unfortunately, it clashes with a number of events that generally happen at the end of March,” she told Barbados TODAY. “You have the UWI Carnival. You also had Laff It Off, their last show this weekend. You also had a number of other activities in terms of the private sector and entities actually hosting events, and usually, for the festival around Easter, we don’t usually have that much competition, essentially. We had car racing, and that’s not the norm for when the festival is happening…. So we are just one of many events happening.”

Despite that, Gibson added, “we still had a very good turnout”.

She predicted that next year’s festival would return to being a busy affair, as Easter is set for later in April.

Gibson suggested that the festival also lost to competing events that attracted greater funding from corporate Barbados this year.

She said: “The Oistins Fish Festival is competing with so many other events, not just during March or Easter but throughout the year. A lot of companies have told us: ‘We love the work that you guys are doing, but we’ve had to cut back on our marketing and our sponsorship’. So they came on board [but] some of them would have reduced the amount of sponsorship they would normally do. Some of them actually said that their operating costs are high and they’ve cut it out of their budget for this year.”

Despite the funding cuts, no activities were cut from the event schedule, the festival co-chair said.

Speaking to Barbados TODAY on Monday evening as the three-day festival wound down, she stressed that the focus remained on the balance of keeping Oistins’ heritage, introducing new vibrant activities and ensuring the Oistins community was thriving.

“For us, it’s about the community, and we want to be able as much as possible to put money back into that community in one form or the other, and I think that’s something that is a critical part of the Oistins Fish Festival,” Gibson said.

Several new activities caught the eye of patrons throughout the last evening of the festival, including the nugget and fishcake eating contests and a tray racing competition.

A traditional crowd delight was the greasy pole competition, with only one team vying for and winning the cash prize in just over ten minutes after several failed attempts.

While there were only three competitors, the dolphin skinning competition was keenly contested, with defending champion Tyrone Shorey taking the top prize for the 19th time. He narrowly won against Fabian Doughty. Darius Hope came third.

In the flying fish boning competition, Gracelyn Moseley took the top spot. Last year’s winner Ruth Layne came second and Sharon Atherley-Yard took the final prize-winning place.

The first, second and third-place winners in each competition received cash prizes of $1 000, $800 and $600, respectively.

(JB)