Sadeke Brooks, Staff Reporter

Entertainment is mainly for leisure, but there are people who are using their expertise in the field to form legitimate businesses.

Garth Walker and Leighton Davis created Creative Media and Events from their experiences. It is an events and marketing company.

"Our core competence is events management. We use our skills, honed over the years, for our corporate clients. We put a little spice into things for them. How it is done, it will seem like more than just a corporate event," Davis told The Sunday Gleaner.

Walker was the marketing force behind the High Society party series, doing parties such as Special Delivery, Fabulous 500 and High Fashion. He is also the chairman of Adam and Eve Day Spa.

Davis is the former general manager of Love Television and is currently the sales director for whaddat.com.

Being involved

The two plan events for corporate clients, such as launches, meetings and office parties.

However, Walker said entertainment was not the driving force behind their decision to start the company.

"The company was not born out of entertainment. It was born out of me and my partner, Davis, being involved in events planning and marketing," Walker said.

"You have many people who stick to promotion, but I took it from the bigger perspective of managing the promotion rather than doing the promotion myself."

In addition, Creative Media and Events manages gospel artiste Omari, and does some level of public relations. The company's business magazine, Wealth, is also at the forefront of their operations.

Through their company, Walker and Davis have been contributing to Jamaica's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Nardia McKenzie, senior consultant at Jamaica Trade and Invest, said entertainment contributed seven per cent to the GDP in 2007. However, the majority of this contribution came from the music industry. Unfortunately, a substantial part of the actual revenue from entertainment has not been reported.

"A lot of those earnings are under-reported. It is hard to track because some of these organisations are not registered or formalised. There is no report mechanism," McKenzie told The Sunday Gleaner.

The Ellis brothers have also taken a business approach to entertainment. Through their main focus, comedy, Brothers Ian 'Ity' Ellis, Owen 'Blakka' Ellis and Aston 'Robot' Ellis started Ellis International in 2004.

Ity said the idea of starting an entertainment-based company came when he went to a comedy show with Blakka overseas.

"Me and Blakka have been touring all over the world (doing comedy) and see how people respond to comedy and we decided that we had to introduce that to Jamaica," Ity told The Sunday Gleaner.

Their first project was a play called Tings A Gwaan in 2004. Other live shows which followed include Backyaad's Crack Up series, Christmas Comedy Cook Up and Portmore Crack Up, which is now a monthly event. Ellis International also branched out into television, producing the Ity and Fancy Cat Show, which was aired on TVJ last year. The next season will start in April.

Finals in Canada

Ity said there are also plans to do a stand-up comedy clash between Jamaica and Trinidad. A leg of the clash will be held in both islands, while the finals will be in Canada.

"The business has had its ups and downs, but we are in business still," said Ity, who was an accountant for many years. "Still going and we are looking forward to going even better."

Likewise, Raymond 'Shadow' Small and Jerome 'Cide' McKenzie jointly formed another entertainment-based company called Darkcide Media in 2005.

Small has a multimedia background while McKenzie has expertise in programming.

The first part of the operation was a sound system called Darkcide International, which is still active.

Additional work

In addition, the two also design flyers, build websites and do some amount of programming and animation. In 2006, they expanded and formed 876radio.com with Kemario 'Kemikal' Lindo and Orvin 'Fatal' Thompson.

"Entertainment was the premise on which Darkcide Media started but, overtime, it has grown. The more you do the more customers want," Small told The Sunday Gleaner.

He boasted that the website has been gaining popularity and has been named the number-one entertainment website in the Caribbean. Yet, there has not been much monetary gains.

"We have seen some trying times in generating income but, fortunately we have other jobs. So we are not entirely dependent on the company for revenue. We could complain, but why?" Small questioned.