CEO of Southex, George Singh, de­scribed Fri­day night’s Chut­ney So­ca Monarch semi­fi­nal as a clear suc­cess, as a large crowd packed Fla­va Vil­lage at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah for the first time in the event’s his­to­ry.

“The turnout was ex­cel­lent at Fla­va. I think peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly came to see the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Semi­fi­nal be­cause the front of the area where the stage is was filled to ca­pac­i­ty,” Singh told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

The semi­fi­nal fea­tured 34 artistes and ran from just af­ter 7.15 pm to short­ly af­ter mid­night, with pa­trons stay­ing un­til the end. Singh said there had been scep­ti­cism about stag­ing the event in Port-of-Spain, but the re­sponse ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions.