Liberation Day festivities to be cut short

The newly formed Liberation Day Committee decided during a conference meeting last week that 2017 Liberation Day festivities will be cut short.

Instead of the Liberation Day lasting a month, as the island has been doing for many years, this year’s Liberation Day festivities will now only last for 15 days.

A new team was assembled to carry out the Liberation Day festivities because Skywalker Communications Group, which was initially handling the Liberation Day festivities, will no longer be on island to work with the Saipan Mayor’s Office in hosting the event this year.

According to the new Liberation Day Committee chair Matt Guerrero it was decided that festivities would be cut short in order to showcase all the local booths that will be a part of the Liberation Day festivities.

The committee came to a decision that there will be 20 booths in total. These 20 booths include food and non-food booths like games. This year, the committee is focusing on keeping the festivities as family based as possible.

Another reason the committee decided to shorten the Liberation Day festivities is because of the venue. According to Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang the Liberation Day festivities will be held at the Garapan Fishing Base and coincides with other events that are usually held there like the local street market.

Apatang said operations may start sooner and in order for no conflicts to arise, the Liberation Day Committee decided to cut the festival short.

Apatang is completely on board with the decisions made by the Liberation Day Committee. “I am very satisfied with everything that will be going on from now, “ said Apatang.

The budget to run the Liberation Day festivities will be at $200,000. It was not discussed if the budget included the payment for performers or the estimated usage fee that is now enforced by the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. CUC, in the previous year, waived the estimated usage fee and installation fee, according to Parker Yobei, Arts Council executive director, who also helped in the set up of the 2017 Flame Tree Arts Festival.

As of right now, the committee is still in discussion and will continue to finalize decisions at their weekly meetings. One thing that is for certain, the Liberation Day festivities will last only 15 days this year.

The Liberation Day festival will start 14 days before July 4 or June 20 with Fourth of July being the last day of this year’s Liberation Day festivities.