By JADE RUSSELL

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

WHILE Junkanoo made its anticipated return on Monday night, there were some challenges that marred the event including ticket fraud.

After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Boxing Day parade was back on Bay Street.

Dwayne Davis, chief information officer for Cable Bahamas Group of Companies, spoke to reporters at the Boxing Day parade and explained the ticket fraud issue and the seating challenges it caused. Aliv, owned by Cable Bahamas, partnered with officials to sell tickets via an app.

“What’s been happening is we had occasions where people took screenshots of tickets and shared them with people. We had people that took screenshots of tickets and resold the tickets outside of the original ticket. But anyone that comes to Bay Street with the original email of your ticket purchase confirmation, we will be able to seat you.”

 “It is also important to note that before we put the tickets on sale, the JCNP took a certain inventory of tickets outside of the system, those would be the printed tickets. Aliv is not responsible for any ticket that’s printed. We are 100 percent responsible for any ticket that has been purchased virtually.”

 Mr Davis acknowledged this was the first time an automated service was being used to purchase tickets for Junkanoo, however, he said they do apologise for any inconvenience caused to those attending. “There’s a lot of fraud going on.

 “We apologise for all of those that are not able to get a seat. What we did was we had some emergency tickets, those are also now gone,” he said

 Mr Davis explained there also were some seating issues due to there being bleachers or extra chairs added that were not originally in the system for the parade seating.

 He said officials have learned a lot from the Boxing Day parade, adding there will be more precautionary steps taken.

 “We learned a lot for New Year’s, what are we going to do if we see the same demand for New Year’s, I guarantee you my team and I will come here. We will personally track every seat and whatever seat that’s not in the system, we will make sure we take it out of the system.”

 Mr Davis estimated that about 6,800 tickets were sold for the Boxing Day parade. He also said that currently, ticket sales for the New Year’s parade were moving slowly with there being over 6,000 tickets still available.

 For his part, Junkanoo Corporation New Providence (JCNP) chairman Dion Miller said he was made aware of some fraudulent activities with the tickets, adding there was a meeting scheduled with Ailv to rectify the problem.

 Throughout the Boxing Day parade, there were some long gaps between the groups which caused things to move slower than expected.

 Mr Miller explained that the rain on Monday did cause a natural pause for the groups as he said “Junkanoo and water don’t mix,” adding many performers had to seek shelter and shield their costumes.

 Asked what improvement he would like to make for the New Year’s parade Mr Miller responded: “Obviously closing the gap, of course, the rain affects that but we want to make sure that it is tight for the New Year’s parade. We anticipate that there will be smaller costumes and so the parade should flow better.”

 Mr Miller said overall he was pleased with the organisation of the parade and the judging was fair.

 “I think this was the largest parade that we have had in the history of having parades. There were quite a lot of Bahamians out on Bay Street and Shirley Street,” he said

 He added the postponement of the parade due to weather conditions on Sunday and even the actual weather on the day of the parade was a concern, however, he was grateful everything worked out for the groups to be able to perform.