Last week I said we were going to discuss the Bermuda Music Festival, which I feel is a colossal waste of millions of tax payers' dollars over nearly 15 years. More on this after the Top 20.

Holding on at #1 is Breakup by Mario featuring Gucci Mane and Sean Garrett. Up to #2 is Last Chance by Ginuwine. It's good to have Ginuwine back with a hit, after a period of absence. Ego by Beyonce tumbles to #3.

Improving to #4 is the monster dance anthem I Know You Want Me by Pitbull. Up to #5 is Successful by Drake featuring L'il Wayne. Soaring to # 6 is Mary Mary with God in Me, Up to #7 is Throw it in the Bag by Fabolous featuring the Dream. Climbing to #8 is Run This Town by Jay Z, Rihanna and Kanye West.

Improving to #9 and shifting gears to dance music is the cool new hit track Celebration by Madonna. Up to #10 is Obsessed by Mariah Carey. Falling to #11 is Maxwell's slow jam Pretty Wings.

Now some new music. Up top #12 this week is Would've Been the One by Solange, a dance hit and a former essential new tune. Improving to #13 is Wasted by Gucci Mane featuring Plies or OJ Da Juiceman. Up to #14 is Under by Pleasure P. Skyrocketing to #15 is Whitney Houston's monster hit Million Dollar Bill.

Up to # 16 is Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas, a hot pop/dance track. Improving to #17 is S.O.S. (Let the music play), by Jordin Sparks. Up to #18 is last week's essential new tune, probably the hottest essential new tune in months; Make Me by Janet Jackson. Down to #19 is Magnificent by Rick Ross featuring John Legend.

And falling to #20 is Knock You Down by Keri Hilson featuring Kanye West and Ne-yo.

Now back to this week's word – The Bermuda Music Festival. What I'm about to write may meet with disagreement, negative comments, anger and frustration by some people; but I believe it is the truth, like it or not.

The Bermuda Music Festival should have been cancelled years ago, long before we put more good money behind previously spent bad money. This event does not produce an acceptable return on investment. I was a proponent for its cancellation before we went into a recession and I'm even more convinced now that it should be terminated.

Yes, I enjoyed seeing Gita perform and have enjoyed numerous other groups' entertainment, from Dockyard in the water, to the National Sports Centre, and back to Dockyard.

Contrary to what anyone says, the event is not a tourism event, because it does not generate enough tourists who are paying their own way, to justify continued investment of millions of dollars each year. Many of the people counted as visitors for this event are only coming because we are paying their way. The event promoters get lots of our tax payers dollars and charge us more than is necessary, in number of nights stayed in local hotels, for which the taxpayer ultimately pays (even if the cost is hidden in an undetailed invoice).

In the absence of the detailed total costs of the event, I will do a simple calculation.

Last year the total cost of the Bermuda Music Festival was $5.8 million, and lost $3 million. I'm told we paid Beyonce $1 million last year. This could be wrong; but I bet it's close. I doubt that we generate 5,000 paying overseas visitors for this event each year. The Tourism Ministry said the event attracted 1,500 visitors and I doubt we generated that many this year. By paying visitors, I mean people who are not on the payroll or whose tickets, hotel and expenses (fees included) are not being paid by us. Most of the audience is local, so it's not a large tourist generator. Even if the festival cost $2.5 million this year, and we did generate 2,500 visitors, which everybody knows we didn't, it would be costing us $1,000 per visitor to put on the event.

In the world tourism market, that is too high a cost to pay to generate a visitor. There are many other ways to generate visitors at a much lower per visitor and total cost. We could talk to experts, hoteliers, airline people, etc. and they will tell us that the event is great and fun but not a good investment of taxpayers' dollars. Even with the minimal media coverage that this event generates, since it is my money and your money, as a responsible custodian of the taxpayers' dollars, I cannot support the continuation of this event. It just does not make good business sense.

If we are to have something like this that is mainly supported by locals, it should be done much smaller, much cheaper and it should be assigned to a different Ministry, because it is clearly not a wise use of tourism dollars. Peace… DJLT.