World Creole Music Festival-goers – both those in Dominica and abroad – are now able to purchase customizable event merchandise online with the newly launched WCMF internet store. The products include t-shirts, hoodies, tank tops, hats, mugs, shoes, posters, bumper stickers, coasters, i-Pod & i-Pad cases and much more. The custom store is located at www.zazzle.com/WorldCreoleMusicFest.

Each product is branded with a Festival or Independence image – from the “Mizik a Non” dancing musicians on a t-shirt to a madras print on notebook binders and Keds shoes and even custom designed portable speakers. Many of the products also feature designs that highlight the landmark 15th year of the World Creole Music Festival. In addition to the already created designs in the store, anyone making a purchase can customize each and every product by adding their own text (such as a name or phrase) and/or images.

To bring this unique and innovative online store to patrons in Dominica and around the world, the World Creole Music Festival Committee collaborated with LinkQMedia, a marketing and consulting company founded by Chester Wilkins of Pointe Michel. Wilkins says the online store is an opportunity to further promote and brand the event on a truly international scale, while also offering customers quality products that will be mementos of the festival for years to come.

“It’s a positive move for the World Creole Music Festival to now offer souvenirs for the event. In addition it’s an online format that’s available internationally,” Wilkins said. “Anyone from anywhere in the world can browse through the products, make a purchase and represent Dominica’s festival worldwide.”

Wilkins says customers can even contact him directly to request specific designs on products if the item isn’t already available. When asked about the initiative, Natalie Clarke-Meade Events Director for the Dominica Festival’s Committee said,

“We live in a virtual planetary business world where IP is the order of the day. Therefore the Dominica Festivals Committee must create as many revenue strands in this global market with a focus to developing the Dominica’s World Creole Festival’s and Carnival’s existing product platform. There is much room for improvement which will take strategic planning and partnering with business and financial sector organizations and their services to extend the life of the products to another fifteen years.

Twelve months into her tenure as Dominica Festival’s Event Clarke-Meade has brought a fresh energy and creative business focus to her post which has been a controversial one for the past fourteen years. Whilst she declined to comment on the challenges she stated, “My intention and challenge as DFC Events Director is to bring a new dream of the present products DFC is responsible for producing to fruition within a very short period of time. With the backing and leverage of all stakeholders Dominicans home and abroad and across our region, there is absolutely no reason why these Festivals should not remain both unique whilst evolving and serving their existing and future strands with excellence and success. For sure I know that we Caribbean people understand that one hand cannot clap and that our drops together create an ocean.”

Mr. Chester Wilkins has made sure the WCMF internet store can be adapted to the languages (French, Spanish, German, English and more) and preferences of customers in Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America, which puts Dominica’s World Creole Music Festival on a genuinely worldly scale. Products are shipped to customers located in hundreds of countries across the globe.

Wilkins can be contacted in Dominica at 767-276-3889 or 767-617-7030, in the U.S. at 818-945-1728 or by email at wilkins.chester@gmail.com.