St. Ann Kite Festival Easter Monday

The Seventh staging of the St. Ann Kite Festival will be held on Easter Monday (April 5) at Richmond Estate, Priory, with the organizers promising that the event will be bigger and better this year.
“This year it has been transformed into an International Festival which has been branded, ‘The St. Ann International Kite Festival’,” principal organizer, Darien Henry, told JIS News.
He noted that the festival had outgrown the previous venue, the Seville Heritage Park, and the decision was made to move to Richmond Estate.
“This will be one of the biggest festivals that will be held at this time in Jamaica. We are expecting local and international kite fliers to converge on the grounds of the Richmond Estate for a day of pure fun,” Mr. Henry predicted.
“We realize that we have a lot of kite enthusiasts here, so we have organised the festival into various categories and persons will be able to show off their kites in various competitions,” he added.
Kite fliers will be competing in categories such as beauty in the air, kite with the longest tail, funniest kite and smallest kite.The event gets underway at 10 a.m. and, in addition to kite flying, there will feature performances from marching bands, rock climbing, bounce-about, horseback riding, mechanical bull, slides, face painting and a host of other activities.
“The grand stage area will come alive at 3 p.m. with cultural performances and talent show for the children,” he said.
He noted that the festival will ‘heat up’ at 6 p.m. with a stage show featuring artistes such as Beenie Man, Shaggy, Macka Diamond, I-Octane, Anthony B, Lust, D’Angel and George Nooks, among others.
Some of the main sponsors of the event are the Gleaner Company, Supreme Ventures, Wisinco, Nitro, Tads Records and Big Joe.