THE summer party season got off to an unofficial start with Rum Bar Bacchanal & Dancehall at Mas Camp in St Andrew, last Saturday.

“This is the third year in a row we’re doing a summer edition. The first year we had 3DX, last year we had it again, and this year is our first Bacchanal & Dancehall in the summer. Carnival season is only so long and we’re trying to branch out and have more events during the year for all of our patrons,” Michael Ammar III, a director of Bacchanal Jamaica — event organisers, told the Jamaica Observer.

Having a 10:00 pm start, compared to Bacchanal Jamaica’s soca events which begin at 8:00 pm, meant it was fully into Saturday morning before the audience numbers reached its peak. Before that, it was the pair of DJ Cruise and DJ Lantern MD holding down the fort for soca lovers. Both put down good sets primarily for the carnival fans, playing familiar hits of the 2017 season, occasionally dabbling in a bit of dancehall to warm the crowd up ahead of Chromatic’s set.

For Chromatic, it was a slow build to a dancing frenzy as they worked their way up through a solid playlist of crowd favourites.

Ammar III said big plans are in the works for the party series.

“We’re starting small, but we’re building it up slowly. So this is the flagship event, but we’re really trying to grow this at first then hopefully and eventually we will have a whole summer series,” said Ammar III.

He said the feedback from the patrons was encouraging.

“We had great opening sets from Lantern and Cruise who got the crowd going. I spoke to a few people to make sure everything was ok. Everyone seems to be having a great time, loving the Rum Bar drinks, the Absolut Vodka, and the music. The vibes are great,” he said.

— Rory Daley