CONTENDERS for this year’s Soca titles will utilize digital applications to submit their selections for the judging criteria.
The Carnival Planning and Management Committee (CPMC) announced the opening of the submission of applications for the 2023 National Groovy and Power Soca Competition.
This year, the submission of applications will be done digitally by completing the electronic form or via www.carnivalsaintlucia.com.
This move to digital form submissions is one of many steps that the CPMC will take aim at, for the overall improvements of Saint Lucia Carnival for participating contestants and all stakeholders.
“We’re excited to take this small, digital step towards the overall improvement of Saint Lucia Carnival. Having access to the information electronically will speed up our processes,” noted Chairperson of the CPMC, Tamara Gibson.
She added, “It ensures that we know and have access to our creatives, and provides concrete data for this and future carnivals to support our decision-making.”
Artistes interested in participating in the 2023 Groovy and Power Soca Monarch are required to complete the electronic form, where they will submit personal data and upload an image of themselves, as well as the intended competition song and backup track in WAV or MP3 format.
Claude Paul, Chairman of the Carnival Music Management Company (CMMC) says “We’re expecting a really exciting Groovy and Power Soca competition this year. The artistes have been working hard in studio and we’re looking forward to the results of these efforts in the tents, at events and during the competitions.”
He appealed to artistes participating in the Soca competitions to submit their songs in a timely manner and follow the regulations “so we can get the process going, in terms of selecting persons to be part and parcel of the competition, this year”.
Paul explained that basically, there are four stages of judging, beginning with; Examination of the Digital or of electronic copies of the song by a select panel, Live auditions. The Live auditions take place from June, 18 “where the artistes will present themselves at the National Cultural Complex”.
Next up, artistes will present their songs with a backing track to two separate panels, one for Groovy and one for Power Soca
The Soca semi-finals is slated for June, 23 at the NCC grounds; to be followed by the finals on July, 7.
“We want to encourage all the artistes to submit their submissions (selections) before the deadline winds out on Monday (June 5),” said Paul.
In an effort to ensure that artistes are fully aware and compliant to the rules and regulations of the competition, he said, the CMMC is in the process of re-publishing the document so that artistes can obtain “a cleaner copy of the rules. But the rules are the same …as essentially from last year”.
Paul notes, to state that persons are not aware of the rules is really a “non-issue” that should not even be bothered with, since “every year in Carnival, and Calypso the art form seems to be fueled by controversy and it’s a matter that we have to deal with calmly and without emotion and to continue to point people in the right direction.”
The deadline for submission of applications for the Groovy and Power Soca Monarch is at midnight, on June, 5. Gibson added, “We recognize that there may be some persons who are not very comfortable with technology. For those persons, we invite you to visit the office of the CPMC, at the Events Company of Saint Lucia Building in Rodney Bay, ensure you have an image of yourself and the song and backup track, and a member of our team will be happy to support you in the application.”