Twice the party!

Kamal Bankay, chairman of Dream Entertainment, the promoters of the annual Dream Wknd music festival, believes that Emancipation Day and Independence Day holidays should both be celebrated on separate weekends.

Bankay made his assertion in an interview with the Jamaica Observer’s Splash earlier this week.

The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) had come out in support of a proposal to amalgamate Jamaica’s Emancipation Day and Independence Day observances.

In a statement, the PSOJ said feedback from its members regarding the potential economic, cultural, and societal benefits of a shift in the ‘Emancipendence’ weekend format will “preserve and strengthen cultural heritage”.

“By combining the two holidays into a dedicated period of national reflection and celebration there is an opportunity to create a more robust, unified celebration that highlights both Jamaica’s liberation from slavery and its journey to independence,” the statement read.

“A consolidated ‘Emancipendence’ holiday can serve as a platform for promoting local tourism and cultural activities…attracting both domestic and international visitors. This will provide a much-needed economic stimulus for the tourism, entertainment, and cultural industries, while also fostering national pride,” it continued.

Bankay said that, while having set holidays for the weekend is good for events such as his, the two public holidays should be commemorated on separate weekends.

“We believe that having set holidays annexed to the weekend is good for entertainment, especially for tourism and destination events like our own. While the proposal by the PSOJ fits this construct, I believe there is a more attractive consideration that works better for our industry. Emancipation Day and Independence Day should be celebrated on two separate weekends,” Bankay told the Observer.

He went to charge a change in the observances could result in a loss in the distinct identity of each observance.

“While both holidays denote ‘freedom’, with the former from slavery and the latter from colonial Britain, Emancipation and Independence are two very separate public holidays with their own historical significance for Jamaica and Jamaicans. If the two are conflated, and the weekend is just called Emancipendence, the individuality of the celebrations to mark those occasions may be lost and their distinctiveness watered down.”

“On the occasions, like in 2021 when August 1st fell on a Sunday, thus it being celebrated on Monday, August 2nd, and Independence on Friday the 6th, event organisers locally and internationally had the opportunity to create long weekend parties on both weekends. Putting both holidays on a single weekend forces all activity into one weekend where everything is piled up on top of one another. Assuming these events are happening all over Jamaica, persons who want to attend multiple things will have to choose just one and there’s missed opportunity to have the same patron go to activities on two successive weekends,” Bankay noted.

The Dream Entertainment chairman is concerned that such a proposal by the PSOJ could have a negative effect on event suppliers.

“All the suppliers who service these activities won’t be able to have two weekends of sustained activity and will essentially have to make a choice. Jamaica has less than five festivals that happen for more than two days, giving us four days of holiday doesn’t magically create more four-day festivals. It causes compression for all the events to happen at one time. We need expansion. It’s better for us to have two three-day weekends than one four-day weekend. There’s no reason why you should force people to pick just one when they can choose two. It’s potentially double the economic activity. Hotels will be full for one weekend where they could be full for two. It doesn’t have the optimal economic impact that some may think it does. And, by the way, all of this is possible by just having the holidays on successive weekends, it doesn’t increase the number of holidays we are having in Jamaica, it doesn’t reduce productivity. Employers in sectors who generally open on public holidays may be able to negotiate with their staff by saying 50 per cent get to take off Emancipation and 50 per cent get to take off Independence vs everyone wanting to take holidays on the one weekend. The optimal impact for our sector is achieved by an Emancipation weekend and separately an Independence weekend,” Bankay reasoned.

Asked if the proposal becomes a reality and how it would affect next year’s staging of Dream Wknd, Bankay said: “Dream will happen as usual on that weekend starting typically a day before the holiday and lasting for five days total.”

Dream Wknd 2025 runs from August 1-5 in Negril.