Sting 2020 Promotion Kicks Off Ahead Of Boxing Day Virtual Staging
As promised by promoter Isaiah Laing a few months ago, the advertising and promotion campaign for the upcoming virtual Sting 2020 show is now on in earnest.
The first online commercial for the iconic Dancehall event, which is set to make its long-awaited return on Boxing Day, December 26, has been streaming on several entertainment vlogs and social media pages, since Monday of this week.
In a release issued a few days ago, the Sting promoters noted that the live online event will “feature international performers streaming from several countries for the STING audience” from as far away as Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil, Japan, London and New York.
“STING is known across every genre as the most lively and explosive festival on the planet, for its fiercely competitive clashes. The recent staging of Bounty vs Beenie was a chip off the original STING block. STING fans are excited and ready to go for the real deal,” the release said.
“The international headliner for the event will be one of the biggest and baddest artistes on the globe right now. Dancehall and Reggae headliners will be the best of the reigning crop; as well as a face off from the original icons who have decades long relationship with the STING brand, since 1983,” it added.
Laing had announced from as far back as January this year, that the event, dubbed the ‘Greatest One Night Show on Earth’, would make a return this December, possibly at its Jamworld home in Portmore after a five-year hiatus, under the theme ‘Sting Wurl’ A Klash’.
However, due to the surfacing of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said he and his team began to recalibrate the plans in March, to instead stage a virtual edition of the show, which he expects to be “the biggest ever”. He said this can be attributed to widespread advertising and promotion over the next few months, and the fact that the COVID lockdown has stymied entertainment events resulting in an unfulfilled need by Dancehall fans, for quality entertainment.
In terms of cost, to see the show, Laing had also told The Star tabloid a few months ago that there will be a charge to watch Sting 2020, but “it won’t be anything the people can’t handle”.
Looking to December, Laing has predicted that the show will be highly entertaining and consist of stellar clashes, as has been the case in the past, as the lyrical match-ups between Dancehall artistes over the years, is the essence of the show.
As for the line-up, in an update in August, he said he had so far approached Buju Banton, Spice, Dexta Daps, Shenseea, Jada Kingdom, Masicka and members of the Montego Bay outfit the 6IX, while internationally he was looking to host Nigerian Afrobeats singer, Burna Boy.
This year, Sting will also take on a charitable cause and will be donating US$1 from every ticket sold, directly to schools on the African continent, Jamaica, Brazil and Haiti, for the purchasing of tablets, to help schoolchildren in remote online education efforts.
Laing, who is a retired police officer, had said he had been pondering the resurrection of the show after he aborted it in 2015, due to, among other things, a lack of sponsorship.
He said this year’s staging is in response to the calls by Dancehall fans have been clamoring for the show’s return. Many fans have been arguing that Sting would inject life back into Dancehall music and separate the musical heavyweights from the weak upcoming artistes who have no stage presence and have been using social media as a clashing platform.
Among some of the most talked-about musical clashes at Sting is the Super Cat versus Ninjaman showdown in 1991, which did not get to be completed as fans rained bottles onstage during the performance. Another clash was Vybz Kartel versus Mavado in 2008 and the infamous Vybz Kartel versus Ninjaman in 2003 in which Kartel and his entourage physically assaulted the Don Gorgon.
However, the most celebrated clash in the history of Sting was the legendary, but peaceful matchup between Beenie Man and Bounty Killer in 1993, which is still talked about to this day. That clash sparked one of the greatest lyrical rivalries in Dancehall history, which spanned many years and also and propelled both artiste into household names in Jamaica and world musical glory.
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