- April 26, 2024
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Although the show is canceled, organizers are still seeking a venue to host those performers able to obtain travel visas. The fest was expected to draw 5,000 visitors to Ormond Beach.
BY WAYNE GRANT | STAFF WRITER
Festival Latino — which was promoted as a two-week event at the Ormond Beach Performing Arts Center, featuring dance, music, poetry and theater acts from Latin America and the Caribbean — was abruptly cancelled last week, after several of the performers were unable to obtain travel visas.
Set to take place Sept. 16-29, the event was expected to draw more than 5,000 visitors to the city.
Cecilia Vega, publicist for Festival Latino, said the group from Argentina, named Tangokinesis, was given bad advice on what kind of visa to get, so they had to reapply. The group from Cuba was denied a visa, but Vega says she contacted “U.S. interests” in the country and the visas are going to be reconsidered.
The decision to cancel the show was made in a meeting between Ormond Beach city staff and the event's organizer, Oscar Ciccone, who made the final cancellation call, according to Robert Carolin, city leisure services director.
“We do a lot of legwork to set up a show and would not cancel one arbitrarily,” Carolin said. “They had trouble getting visas and decided to cancel.”
Vega said that she still expects the performers to get visas, however. She has performance contracts with each group, she added, and has to pay their expenses. So she is currently in the process of searching for a new venue to host the acts that do arrive. Locations in Deltona are next on her contact list.
“We have an emergency right now,” she said. “It’s very unfortunate.”
It's common for international shows to have these sorts of problems, Vega said, but the issues are typically worked out.
“It can be Placido Domingo,” she said. “(But) you never know about visa applications.”
The show would have been Central Florida's first Latin American performance-art festival. Festival Latino has previously been hosted in New York, Vega added, and has taken place in venues such as Central Park and the Palace Theater for “many years."
Ciccone, who has organized the event since 2002, is originally from Argentina and chose Ormond Beach for the location of this year's fest after retiring here two years ago.
He could not be reached for comment.
