The Alliance spokesperson Ridley Greene said that with any new criteria for calypso tents, his organisation would naturally sit with the NCF to discuss and agree on implementation of such.

"We must be careful, however, about what some people call standardisation of tents. We won't want to have clones of any one model. Some tents have their own niche offerings which should be encouraged and nurtured," he added.

by MICHELLE SPRINGER

IC-O-DE-CROP is in for a downsizing as far as the number of participating tents is concerned!

That's because Government plans to tighten up on its financial support for tents.

This was revealed yesterday by chairman of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF), Ken Knight, who was responding to charges from within the kaiso community that the quality of calypso was being depleted because there were too many tents.

"What we will have to do in the future is definitely look at the criteria for the tents. It is certainly our intention to have thorough revising of the criteria," Knight said.

The foundation was not keen on the quality of this year's calypsos, or the amount of money to be spent in subventions, he added.

“We’ve only sold about five $30,000 tables,” she said. “Two or three years ago, we would sell 10. Some people who bought two tables in the past are buying one table this year. Some people have called to ask me about discount rates, which was not something we saw in the past. And we’re seeing individual couples who bought two tickets are not coming at all.”

But economizing hardly appeared to be a guiding principle as nearly two dozen workers assembled steel girders for a 10,000-square-foot free-span tent; expensive and pole-free, these tents are to outdoor parties what Gunite is to swimming pools and Sub-Zero is to refrigeration.

Ms. Murray explained, however, that there is pressure in the philanthropic world, despite the economic downturn, to always outdo past performances.

BRIDGEHAMPTON, N.Y. — Trustees of the Children’s Museum of the East End rejected a dinner dance at a rented farm in favor of a cocktail party on the museum grounds here, replaced a five-piece rock ‘n’ roll cover band with a teenage jazz combo and slashed ticket prices to $150 from $450, but still only drew about 150 guests, half the number that turned out for the benefit last year.

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Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times

Geoff Sawyer was among workers setting up tables on Friday for the Simmons charity event.

At the Watermill Center, an artists’ enclave nearby, planners of the annual summer benefit scheduled for Saturday night (dress code: wild chic) have ratcheted back fund-raising expectations — and expenses, trying to spend a few thousand dollars less on the elaborate tents and other trappings that are used at such events.

And there are still hundreds of tickets left for the annual Art for Life gala, also scheduled for Saturday night, at the East Hampton estate of Russell Simmons, the rap impresario.

All along the East End of Long Island, a string of beach towns that represent a sort of New York