The festival was moved to its present date to provide an additional reason for visitors from our usual tourist markets to visit during the low season for tourism. Instead, the idea of Crop Over as a way of diversifying the tourism product happened to come on stream just as an entirely new potential source of visitors was developing: the Barbadian Diaspora.
The Diaspora had now grown in size and earning power to the point where many could contemplate annual visits. Here was an opportunity for them to return at a time convenient for those with school age children, and when there was lots to see and do, with plentiful opportunities to meet old friends and socialise. These two successes are the exception.