By Tyrone Reid, Staff ReporterThe fourth staging of the annual Gospel Train concert series never 'choo-chooed' out of its station this year due to engine problems that were financially related. The Glory Music-promoted event would have usually travelled across the island with ten shows in different parishes.
According to Tommy Cowan of Glory Music, the main reason for cancelling the fourth consecutive staging of the event was that they could not afford it. He told The Sunday Gleaner that the decision to forego this year's staging of the popular event came about after they concluded last year's run. "We lost a lot of money last season, so much that my first priority is to try to pay off all those bills," explained Cowan.
At the outset Glory Music pointed out that the main aim of the Gospel Train venture was not to make a profit but to touch the lives of as many as possible in a special way. However, until now the venture has not yet broken even.
"It's starting to hurt us financially, so we have to stop and revamp the whole thing because at the end of the day the bills have to be paid."
Cowan said that in addition to clearing up the bills that they have in arrears, Glory Music is now looking at ways of generating corporate sponsorship. This sponsorship is of paramount importance to the reintroduction of the concert series. "More potential sponsors need to know the positive impact that gospel concerts have on the society and assist us in that way," reasoned Cowan. Mr. Cowan revealed that on average, it costs more than one million dollars to stage one show out of the series. Therefore it would cost in excess of ten million dollars to fund the entire series - money to which Glory Music does not have access. Although it seemed that Glory Music was up to its neck in debt, Mr. Cowan said that by no means was the company on the verge of filing bankruptcy. "I wouldn't say that we are bankrupt, but we still have some outstanding bills to pay off," he said.
Even though the financial mountains seem so very high, Mr. Cowan. "We never had it this year but next year for sure we will be having it. We are not disheartened, we are just using wisdom to do what we are doing," emphasised Cowan.
