Pe­ter Ray Blood

"Point Fortin Bor­ough Day Fes­ti­val brings more peo­ple to T&T than Car­ni­val, and Caribbean Air­lines wouldn't even con­tribute a red cent to a na­tion­al event that is mak­ing mon­ey for them," said Point Fortin May­or Clyde Paul. The may­or added that this year's event will be the biggest ever staged, so more events have been added to the 17-day cel­e­bra­tion.

The Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion will host the of­fi­cial launch of the 2016 fes­ti­val on Fri­day, April 22, at Vic­tor Chin Kit Park, at 5.30 pm. The fol­low­ing day, from 11 am, a foot­ball fes­ti­val, fea­tur­ing the likes of for­mer foot­ball greats Leroy De Leon, Ever­ard "Gal­ly" Cum­mings, Sel­wyn Quan­vie, Arn­im David, Wil­fred Cave and Mon­ty and Mel­lo Dou­glas, will be held at Cap-de-Ville.

That night, from 8 pm, Pan­tar with the Mas­ters of Ca­lyp­so will per­form for The In­do-Ca­lyp­so Jazz event at the Clifton Hill Beach Re­sort. A church ser­vice is planned for Sun­day, April 24, as well as an in­vi­ta­tion­al ju­nior swim meet at the Point Fortin Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pool.

Paul said: "The Bor­ough Day Fes­ti­val came from noth­ing and has grown in­to what it is to­day–one of the best at­tend­ed cul­tur­al events in the en­tire Caribbean.

"This fes­ti­val puts T&T on the glob­al map as far as cul­ture is con­cerned. What's amaz­ing about it is that this fes­ti­val was born in an eco­nom­ic pe­ri­od that is sim­i­lar to the one we are cur­rent­ly in; a pe­ri­od of re­ces­sion. It shows that when mon­ey runs low, the spir­it of a peo­ple is lift­ed through cul­ture, and T&T is boun­ti­ful in this re­spect."

Rem­i­nisc­ing on the growth of the fes­ti­val, now in its 28th year, the may­or said: "Get­ting cor­po­rate Trinidad to sign on and part­ner with us has been like pulling teeth. We had no spon­sors in the first few years and some of the steel­bands used to vol­un­teer to play at the start.

"We do have a hand­ful of loy­al spon­sors like At­lantic which has been a faith­ful sup­port­er and spon­sor. This com­pa­ny is re­al­ly do­ing a lot to fu­el, pro­mote and pro­pel the cul­tures of T&T, there­by giv­ing vi­bran­cy to the com­mu­ni­ty of Point Fortin."

Ac­tion heats up this year on Fri­day, April 29, when Icons in D'Sun, a mid­day con­cert, will be staged at Vic­tor Chin Kit Park. That evening, a new Ms Point Fortin Bor­ough Queen will be crowned when the an­nu­al pageant is held at Point Fortin East Sec­ondary

School. Lat­er that night the very pop­u­lar Liv­er­pool Fete will take place at Clifton Hill Beach Park.Kids in Cul­ture will be held on April 30, al­so at the Park, at 1.30 pm and An Evening of El­e­gance, a fash­ion ex­trav­a­gan­za, fea­tur­ing de­signs by the top de­sign­ers of South Trinidad, takes place from 5.30 pm at Clifton Hill Beach Park.

The Bor­ough Marathon Race is sched­uled for Sun­day, May 1 through the streets of Point Fortin, from 6 am. In the evening, at 7 pm, Re­turn of Rhythm will be held at Coro­na­tion Park. The mood mel­lows on the evening of May 2 when A Cel­e­bra­tion of Gospel will be held at Vic­tor Chin Kit Park.

El­ders of the Bor­ough are ex­pect­ed to con­verge in the yard of the PNM Con­stituen­cy Of­fice to re­live the old days and tell tales when The Rumshop Lime is held at 8 pm on Tues­day, May 3. On Wednes­day 4, at 11.30 am, se­nior cit­i­zens will be treat­ed to a spe­cial lun­cheon at Clifton Hill Beach Re­sort, and in the evening, the Rem­i­nin­sce par­ty will be held at Clifton Hill Beach Park. "Peo­ple had bet­ter walk with their danc­ing shoes that night," said May­or Paul. "I want to bring back pan in the dance­hall at this par­ty, along with the mu­sic of the Pal Joey Lewis Or­ches­tra."

Re­pub­lic Bank is one of the spon­sors of the fes­ti­val and the bank's ban­ner will be flown on the evening of Thurs­day, May 5 when the Re­pub­lic Bank Pan on the Park­way is held along Techi­er Main Road from 5 pm. Some of the head­lin­ers to per­form at this event are 2016 Na­tion­al Panora­ma run­ner-up First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas, Ex­o­dus, Skif­fle, San City and De­fence Force Steel Or­ches­tra.

We Meet, a com­mu­ni­ty event at which Point Fortin res­i­dents meet vis­i­tors on the streets of the Bor­ough, will be held on Fri­day 6 at 6 pm. That evening, the Tra­di­tion­al Pan Fi­es­ta will al­so be held from 7 pm. May­or Paul said that spon­sor­ship has been ac­quired for this item and a com­pe­ti­tion has been or­gan­ised, to be held at Mar­ket Square, ex­clu­sive­ly for on­ly Sin­gle Pan steel­bands, with pror­i­ty giv­en to mem­ber steel­bands from the South Cen­tral Re­gion of Pan Trin­ba­go Inc. The may­or said reg­is­tra­tion is free to steel­bands wish­ing to par­tic­i­pate in this com­pe­ti­tion.

The dawn of Sat­ur­day will see the ea­ger­ly await­ed Point Fortin J'Ou­vert, ex­pect­ed to be quite an event as mu­sic will be pro­vid­ed main­ly by steel­bands. An­nu­al­ly a num­ber of mas­quer­aders from North­ern bands like 2016 Band of the Year Ron­nie & Caro, Lega­cy and Choco­late City make the trek to Point to this J'Ou­vert, hailed by reg­u­lars as "one of the best J'Ou­vert events," matched on­ly by New York and Grena­da.

The pa­rade of tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters is sched­uled to be­gin lat­er in the day, at 4 pm, and will pre­cede the main event of the fes­ti­val–Pan-On-The-Move– through the streets of Point Fortin.

Pan-On-The-Move on May 7 will see 18 steel or­ches­tras on pa­rade, in­clud­ing the fi­nal­ists in the large con­ven­tion­al cat­e­go­ry in this year's Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. Des­per­a­does, Su­per­novas, Had­co Phase II Pan Groove, bpTT Rene­gades, CAL In­vaders, Massy Trinidad All Stars, PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars, RBTT Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters and Skif­fle will all be there.

They will be joined by the win­ners of the medi­um and small cat­e­gories, Har­monites, de­scribed by the may­or as "a Bor­ough Fes­ti­val pi­o­neer steel­band," Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps and "lo­cal Point steel­bands" Tor­na­does, La Brea Nightin­gales and Star­land.

Boogsie at the pub

Pan vir­tu­oso Len "Boogsie" Sharpe will lead some of his con­tem­po­raries in a con­cert en­ti­tled Pan at the Pub next Wednes­day, April 20. Sharpe, dubbed "the Mozart of Pan", and arranger of Phase II Pan Groove, is the head­line act along with pan mu­sic show­men Massy Trinidad All Stars' Dane Gul­ston, Noel La Pierre and Earl Brooks. The gui­tar-tot­ing Abebele will be do­ing du­ties as "the singing Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies".

The show will start at 8.30 pm at D Nu Pub (The Mas Camp) in Wood­brook and promis­es to give pan mu­sic lovers a mid-week treat be­fore they take off to the sis­ter isle for this year's To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence.