Junkanoo is back on Bay Street. Parades are planned for both Boxing and New Year’s Day. Tickets for these events went on sale this past weekend. The Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, the Hon. Mario Bowleg gave an update on tickets while outside of Cabinet.
“I was told after the first hour of the launch on Saturday that 1000 tickets were already sold. I was told upwards to yesterday more than 4000 tickets had already been sold and most of those persons would have done that online and so they were quicker to the draw. Unfortunately some Bahamians will not be able to purchase tickets because they will be sold out. But I think the sales are going well and it shows the Bahamian support towards Junkanoo.”
An app was devised through a partnership between Aliv and the Bahamas National Junkanoo Corporation [BNCP] to facilitate ticket sales. There have been some glitches in the system which the Minister addressed. “The Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture is not responsible for the sale of junkanoo tickets. That is solely the responsibility of the JCNP, who is in partnership with Aliv and who I think is doing a great job in allowing us to be able to purchase tickets from in the comfort of our home and its unfortunate that some of us wait til the last minute knowing that we had two years hiatus of not having junkanoo and now its back on. And so, Bahamians knows its one of the cultural activities that they love the most, so then those persons who really did not want to miss the show after post COVID-19 then obviously we knew we would had a quick, large amount of tickets being sold right away.”