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145 vie for Trinidad’s Soca Monarchy

The deadline for registration to take part in the 2014 International Soca Monarch competition has been extended to 4 pm on Saturday.

The Caribbean Prestige Foundation (CPF) for the Performing Arts, which stages the popular Carnival show, has extended the deadline due to the “overwhelming request by artistes who are still in studio.”

The show is being held under the theme “Soca 22 — Let the Rhythm Define You” to mark 22 years since the competition began. Popular soca artistes Bunji Garlin, Fay Ann Lyons, and Kees Dieffenthaller have been contracted to perform as guest artistes on Fantastic Friday, February 28, the finals of the Soca Monarch competition at Hasely Crawford Stadium, Port-of-Spain. They will not take part in the competition.

However, Munro said all the big names in the soca industry including Austin “SuperBlue” Lyons and Machel Montano, the joint reigning monarchs, as well as young and upcoming artistes are taking part in the annual event.

The prizes, he said, will be bigger and better including a prize of $350,000 for Young Breakthrough Artiste of the Year. He would not disclose what the other prizes are.

Last year, Lyons and Montano shared the first prize of $2 million as winners of the Power Soca category. Montano pocketed $1 million as the Groovy Soca Monarch.

As of yesterday over 145 artistes had already registered in the Power Soca and Groovy Soca categories. However, CPF will be expecting the usual deadline rush on Friday and Saturday.

The preliminaries will be held on Sunday at Cascadia Hotel, St Anns. The semi-finals will be held on February 9 at Arima Velodrome.