Analysis to determine Carnival success

Friday, May 22, 2015

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I note with some interest your headline story entitled “Was Carnival really a success?” of May 21st, 2015.

Firstly, the vast majority of experts in the arts, culture and entertainment community have characterised the inaugural 2015 Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival a critical and artistic success and a step in the right direction in the growth and development of culture in The Bahamas, its inter-industrial linkage to our number one industry, tourism and in the integration of culture into the country’s national economy.

There were over 500 participants from the cultural community and they were generally satisfied with the outcome.

The Bahamian people who were the customers of this product endorsed this celebratory event overwhelmingly with some 90,000 spectators and participants according to police estimates.

Many Bahamians expressed regret that they failed to “jump in line” during the Road Fever Parade and would be left behind in 2016.

Secondly, The Tribune’s editorial position appears to be to interview vendors who did not fare well financially and to use that singular issue to question the success of Carnival. That is bias, unfair and does not tell the entire story.

Further, if The Tribune’s criterion is used, then everything becomes a failure because of the statistical principle of the “Bell Distribution Curve.”

Thirdly, in the interest of fairness and balance – is The Tribune prepared to interview the vendors who fared well financially during Carnival?

Interview the hotels that were sold out; the food and drinks vendors that sold out; the car rental companies that sold out. That would be a good exercise as readers would have the benefit of both sides of the story and could draw a more informed conclusion as to the success of carnival.

My personal favourites are the taxi driver who turned down jobs so he could take in some of the festivities.

Another favourite is the food vendor who because of her financial success at carnival was able to pay her child’s upcoming school fees in full. The list of success stories goes on and on.

There is an economics rule of thumb in calculating the macroeconomic impact of an investment. If the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) impact is 3.5 to four times the investment, then statistically, the investment was a macroeconomic success. The Commission invested some $9m and a GDP impact of $31.5m to $36m nationally would spell success for the 2015 Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival.

The Commission investment $1m in the Grand Bahama leg of the festival and according to the Carnival Commission, the GDP impact on the economy of Grand Bahama was around $17m to $18m or 17 to 18 times the investment.

Statistically, the Grand Bahama leg of Carnival was an unqualified macroeconomic success.

As for New Providence, let us wait on the economic impact analysis from the Festival Commission shall we? With the Grand Bahama results in, we are more than half way there.

ELCOTT COLEBY

Nassau,

May 21, 2015.

Comments

ThisIsOurs says...

How about asking the commission how many people they owe money to and still haven't paid going on three weeks after the festival. I don't know what success looks like to you, but that's not i(t. Three weeks??? Do they have any money left? Are they stalling for further funds from government? Some people, i.e. real money men, might say "under budget" is your biggest success criteria, welcome to the *at any cost, don't ask for an accounting* administration, in the past three years budget doesn't even seem to be on the radar and this after all of the talk about the road projects.

Mid year budget report is coming soon what are they going to do? Introduce the new project management principle of increasing your budget to fit your project wants?

Posted 23 May 2015, 4:28 a.m. Suggest removal

Zakary says...

> "There were over 500 participants from the cultural community and they were generally satisfied with the outcome."

<br>
>"The Bahamian people who were the customers of this product endorsed this celebratory event overwhelmingly with some 90,000 spectators and participants according to police estimates."

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The success of carnival was touted mainly as one that would be economic, so attendance numbers do not matter, what we want to see is its **profitability**, which is the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent.
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>"Secondly, The Tribune’s editorial position appears to be to interview vendors who did not fare well financially and to use that singular issue to question the success of Carnival. That is bias, unfair and does not tell the entire story."
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Oh please, it is the job of The Tribune to question issues of this nature, especially considering the fact there has been more good news than bad news so far from carnival, so I welcome the scrutiny.
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>"Further, if The Tribune’s criterion is used, then everything becomes a failure because of the statistical principle of the “Bell Distribution Curve.”

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Buddy, I don't know what principle you're talking about as there are quite a few. Assuming you refer to the central limit theorem, don't you think it's too early to be talking about normal distribution curves when there are no complete numbers out yet on the financial impact?
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>"The Commission investment $1m in the Grand Bahama leg of the festival and according to the Carnival Commission, the GDP impact on the economy of Grand Bahama was around $17m to $18m or 17 to 18 times the investment."

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I can't even....You know I think it's best we all just wait for the official report and let the math do all the talking, math doesn't lie right?

Posted 23 May 2015, 8:03 a.m. Suggest removal

Math can be tricky sometimes....then there's math and "new" math. Three weeks after they could have at least given number of tickets sold

Posted 23 May 2015, 10:59 a.m. Suggest removal

Alltoomuch says...

Depends on who's doing the counting!!

Posted 23 May 2015, 9:24 a.m. Suggest removal

Candi Dames, can you please investigate whether the commission has any money on its bank account to pay the individuals and companies it owes money to? Did they have the money between May 12 2015 and today or do they have their hat in hand now begging the government and the gaming establishments for funds after they've squandered and "redirected" 11million dollars

Posted 23 May 2015, 10:48 a.m. Suggest removal

"Candia Dames"

Posted 23 May 2015, 11:12 a.m. Suggest removal

duppyVAT says...

Coleby sounds like one of those PLP ass-licking cronies ......... like the Lodge boy ex-lawyer. But there is no need for analysis with the PLPs ............. just give away the free-bees and alls good .............. the boys made some of the Carnival millions and the poor ghetto people had their fun .................. dont worry, be happy ............. thats the PLP analysis

Posted 23 May 2015, 5:57 p.m. Suggest removal

ohdrap4 says...

this coleby guy writes for bahamasuncensored, what do you expect?

Posted 25 May 2015, 2:53 p.m. Suggest removal

Wow, just went through this site...and it's sad. What's up with the google search result though? It says the site may be hacked!?

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[![.](https://i.imgur.com/69cNLNM.png)](https://www.google.com/search?q=bahamas+uncensored)

Posted 25 May 2015, 4:03 p.m. Suggest removal

johnq says...

No disrespect intended to the author but this letter is rubbish. Wasn't it reported by The Tribune about a week ago that carnival organizers hope that the event will become profitable by its third year? So the aggressively positive tone of this message and the touting of Grand Bahama's Carnival outcomes make no sense.

[link text][1]

[1]: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2015/apr… "Third Year, Mavbe?"

But what offended me most is the mention of "an economics rule of thumb in calculating the macroeconomic impact of an investment". What exactly is this? There is a number of methodologies that can be used to calculate the economic impact of an investment. Mr. Coleby, unfortunately like many government officials, seem a bit too comfortable throwing around concepts and statistics that they don't fully understand. "An unqualified macroeconomic success" this phrase has absolutely no meaning!

What should matter is the number of tourists that came specifically to see the carnival and the amount of money vendors spent on goods and services specifically for the carnival and how many times this total is multiplied through the economy. If you think this adds up to the tens of millions being thrown around by the officials then "God bless your heart" and I have some land to sell you.

Posted 25 May 2015, 5:13 a.m. Suggest removal