It was in 1999 that the East­ern Main Road in Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille, got its first taste of an Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tion.

This took the form of a steel­band pa­rade with a dozen bands be­ing pushed along the paved road­way by rev­ellers much to the de­light of all present who were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an event like this for the first time in their com­mu­ni­ty.

Al­though hav­ing pro­duced top steel or­ches­tras of the past with the likes of Hi-Lan­ders, Savoys and oth­ers, re­al­is­ing the in­stant suc­cess, the Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val Foun­da­tion (LSFF) re­dou­bled its ef­forts by ex­tend­ing its vi­sion.

With the main sup­port com­ing from the then Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs, to­geth­er with An­gos­tu­ra Lim­it­ed, the Laven­tille Eman­ci­pa­tion Steel­band Street Pa­rade was then ful­ly es­tab­lished as a "must at­tend" event.

Hav­ing re­named the route, from Mc Al­is­ter Street, in the west, to Leon Street, in the east, their "East­ern Park­way," be­cause of the straight, smooth ter­rain, many more bands as well as spec­ta­tors be­came at­tract­ed to this well or­gan­ised event, pri­mar­i­ly nur­tured through the am­bi­ence and hos­pi­tal­i­ty of the Laven­tille res­i­dents.

A def­i­nite suc­cess sto­ry for the last 14 years, in terms of ex­cel­lent mu­sic and bur­geon­ing en­ter­prise for the com­mu­ni­ty, yet an­oth­er in­stal­ment of the pa­rade and fes­ti­val has been or­gan­ised in 2013.

With no elec­tron­ic mu­sic along the route, at least 30 steel­bands are ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate. The drum will re­al­ly be cel­e­brat­ed in all of its myr­i­ad forms–Tam­boo Bam­boo, Rhythm Sec­tion, Sin­gle Pan and con­ven­tion­al steel or­ches­tras.

In­clud­ed will be all cham­pi­ons of Panora­ma 2013, un­doubt­ed­ly the biggest pan ac­tiv­i­ty, out­side Car­ni­val.

So, put Au­gust 4 in your cal­en­dar, and get to Laven­tille for 4 pm, for eight hours of seam­less pan mu­sic, fin­ish­ing on the stroke of mid­night.

This year's theme is Peace and Love and all par­tic­i­pat­ing steel­bands have agreed to wear white. Or­gan­is­ers are al­so ask­ing spec­ta­tors and rev­ellers to wear white as they in­tend for this ges­ture to make a loud state­ment.

This state­ment be­gins with the road show, out­side The House of An­gos­tu­ra, pro­duced by Nor­van Fuller­ton.

The fea­tured mu­sic for the oc­ca­sion will be love songs, hymns and peace songs from the bands. The street pa­rade would be led by 12 of the Foun­da­tion's past hon­orees.

This year the LSFF will be charg­ing an en­trance fee to the en­closed area at Do­ra­ta Street, which has be­come nec­es­sary to de­fray spi­ral­ing cost to pro­duce a pa­rade of this mag­ni­tude.

The LSFF has ex­tend­ed grat­i­tude and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, An­gos­tu­ra Lim­it­ed, Pan­land T&T, Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice, Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Laven­tille Com­plex and I95.5FM.

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