BugzBgus, backed by Big Band, performs during VI Consortium's first Quarantine Jam event. Photo Credit: VI CONSORTIUM
The Virgin Islands Consortium is building on its successful and historic online-only entertainment effort for the USVI, the wider Caribbean and people all over the world.
Following the first "Quarantine Jam", which was held on April 11 and reached more than 600,000 people, the media house on Saturday announced "Quarantine Jouvert", which the platform said will see participants in the territory and around the world dressing up in Jouvert Morning attire at their homes, while jamming to some of the Virgin Islands biggest artists — Pumpa, BugzBugs and more to be announced soon — all backed by Big Band, one of the territory's premier groups.
The Quarantine Jam event has been viewed over 289,000 times as of Saturday morning. At one point, there were 9,400 concurrent viewers during the livestream — historic numbers in all of the Virgin Islands — along with 165,000 comments, another milestone in online streaming in all of the VI.
The Quarantine Jouvert, which has been in the works since the day after the first quarantine event, looks to build on the successes of its predecessor by adding additional fun interactive activities. There will be $2,000 in cash giveaways through competitions, and the Consortium is inviting participation through the Zoom platform. People will be encouraged to show off their best moves from the comfort of their homes. Consortium engineers will grab the video feeds and place them into the main live feed on Facebook for everyone to see.
Like the first quarantine affair, the Quarantine Jouvert will be held at the Starlight Lounge with only participants of the event allowed into the facility. The 5-hour virtual entertainment effort, which starts at 4:00 a.m. and ends at 9:00 a.m., is part of Consortium Founder Ernice Gilbert's desire to contribute to the relieving of stress caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
"Covid-19 has disrupted the norms of people around the world. Folks are, for the most part, stuck at home and barred from enjoying leisures once taken for granted. While we've held to the belief that this too will pass, in the meantime, people need entertainment to look forward to, and we're happy to be able to facilitate some stress relief in partnership with some of the territory's biggest entertainment acts," said Mr. Gilbert. He added that the event is also part of the platform's contribution to Carnival VI, which was cancelled this year because of Covid-19.
The Coronavirus pandemic has pummeled the global economy while taking over 154,000 lives as of Saturday morning, according to John Hopkins University data. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, a third death was announced late Friday. The territory, as of Friday, had 51 confirmed cases of the disease.
