PHUKET: Talks are likely to continue over the next few days to try to salvage the proposed Andaman Cultural Festival.

Efforts to merge it with the Patong Carnival, which begins December 15, have failed.

Carnival organisers have told the Andaman Culture Festival promoters that the Patong event has grown each year for 27 years and it has its own character.

This year's Patong Carnival runs for six days with the theme 'Colorful World Under the Sea.' The first-night opening procession has attracted a record 30 floats.

Two stages for live performances, seafood offerings and a Patong Bay diving cleanup on Sunday, December 16 are features of the carnival.

The Andaman Cultural Festival began as a Bangkok idea, with a competition between all Andaman provinces to host the first event.

Phuket won the hosting rights but the 100 million baht budget for the event that had been suggested as the ''prize'' in Bangkok disappeared.

Since then, the provinces that lost out to Phuket - Phang Nga, Ranong, Trang, Satun and Krabi - have been less than enthusiastic about providing funding for a Phuket-based event.

The Andaman Festival will rightly be viewed on Phuket as a good Bangkok idea foisted on the island without proper thought, budget or time to execute it properly.

At a few days' notice, the event was to have been launched by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at a gala event at the Blue Elephant restaurant in Phuket City with a parade and stalls from all the Andaman provinces in the nearby streets.

However, there was so little time to organise and promote the event - and bring in tourists as the audience - that the idea has inevitably languished.

Just who imagines that festival of worth can be thrown together with a few days' notice?

And to hold an Andaman Cultural Festival in high season would be to waste a good idea.

Without a proper budget the event could fail and never be turned into a worthwhile festival.

Yet if it was properly promoted six months in advance for the right time of year, with the right kind of budget, there is no reason why it would not succeed.