“WE DON’T WANT OISTINS TO DIE.”
For that reason, the newly elected president of the Oistins Bay Garden Committee, Susette Gerald-Bisham, 43, said they would be bringing more entertainment to Oistins to attract more people and spur economic activity.
Besides the usual Friday and Saturday night entertainment packages, the popular Christ Church location is transformed on Wednesday nights with a free Movie Night. This was started about two months ago.
And according to Gerald-Bisham, it has been going very well, with 100 or more people converging on the spot from as early as 7 p.m. each Wednesday for the outdoor experience.
“People are catching on that Wednesday night is Movie Night, so each night we have quite a few people coming. This is a committee decision. The stall owners get together and pay for almost all the entertainment that comes to Oistins. So we provide funds as well to offset the movie night,” she said.
There are currently 32 stall operators in Oistins Bay Garden but not all of them are open on Wednesday night. Two movies are shown on the night.
“Our little entertainment that we have in Oistins are usually Friday night [fish-fry and lime and] Saturday night Karaoke. So we wanted a relaxed atmosphere as well where people can just come out and sit down and enjoy.
“A couple months ago I was the PRO and I decided to go ahead with the Movie Night and see how things go.
“Surprisingly, the reception was very good because we have a lot of tourists and locals who still come to Oistins during the week nights to have a drink and just sit down. And a lot of them were surprised to see a Movie Night.
“Some people actually come with their blankets and chairs,” said Gerald-Bisham.
She said that the stall owners had a lot of ideas about what they wanted to do with Oistins “and we are going to go for them”.
“Usually we would have a popcorn lady here as well and it is like a real cinema style. It encourages more business.”
She said they “tried hard” to get support from Government and other agencies “but sponsorship is very hard to come by with the recession that is on”.
“So we decided if no sponsorship, we will go ahead and do things on our own because we don’t want Oistins to die.”
The Christ Church resident told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY that since the start of Movie Night there have been no challenges, “only bad weather” from time to time.
The entrepreneur said they were already working on some new initiatives for the heavily traversed area and by this month they should be rolling them out.
“We will have live bands. We want to have a name for each night – like Calypso Night, for example. We already have Movie Night and Karaoke Night. We want to give each night a name and we are now in the process of doing that. We have been trying hard to get things ready for Crop Over 2012,” she explained.
“It will be continuous and for each season we will be fitting in something for the season; so if it is Christmas, we will be putting on something to suit that season – and with the annual fish festival, we have to do things that suit the fish festival.
“But we will still have our bands leading up to the seasons.”