DAVID CUFFY

A Car­ni­val Mon­day night pan event got the thumbs-down from sev­er­al steel­band lead­ers yes­ter­day.In an ef­fort to re-in­tro­duce steel­bands in­to Car­ni­val, Pan Trin­ba­go or­gan­ised two events for bands to dis­play their mu­si­cal skills on Car­ni­val Mon­day evening.One was the sec­ond edi­tion of the Groovy So­ca Steel­band Com­pe­ti­tion in all of its re­gions, and the oth­er a Health & Fit­ness Chip, an ini­tia­tive un­der the aegis of the Min­istry of Health, through its Fight the Fat Cam­paign, for Car­ni­val 2014.

This non-com­pet­i­tive event took the form of a steel­band pa­rade from Tra­garete Road, New­town to Adam Smith Square on Ari­api­ta Av­enue in Wood­book.But steel­band lead­ers were not im­pressed by the new ini­tia­tive. Some said their bands brought out pre­sen­ta­tions on Car­ni­val Mon­day so ex­pe­ri­enced great dif­fi­cul­ty in find­ing the en­er­gy need­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the event, de­spite the lure of a $12,000 ap­pear­ance fee.

Man­ag­er of Free­dom Steel Or­ches­tra Joseph Don­awa said the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the pa­rade left much to be de­sired, as the steel or­ches­tras had to con­tend with mu­sic com­ing from sev­er­al large mu­sic trucks on Ari­api­ta Av­enue. In ad­di­tion, ac­cess­ing the venue was chal­leng­ing as sev­er­al streets in Wood­brook were blocked off to ac­com­mo­date the ear­li­er Pa­rade of Bands."My band did not get out of Wood­brook un­til 1.30 am Tues­day," he said.

"There were some 20-plus bands list­ed to par­tic­i­pate, but some were still on the stage in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah be­tween 8 and 9 o'clock Mon­day night, so they ar­rived at the venue very late, adding to the con­ges­tion."I do not think Car­ni­val Mon­day night was the best time to hold this ini­tia­tive."Vice pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go Bry­on Ser­rette promised to send a state­ment from the or­gan­i­sa­tion but none had been re­ceived by press time.

'pan needs a big idea'

"It start­ed rea­son­ably well," said Christo­pher Abra­ham. "I was stand­ing at Colville Street and Tra­garete Road cor­ner from 6 pm. The first steel­band was there very ear­ly (Pan El­ders) and they as­sem­bled by 5.55 and got go­ing. "Cordettes, Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny and In­vaders fol­lowed, then there were scanty ar­rivals, with some not hav­ing the full com­ple­ment of play­ers. I left at 8 pm so, hope­ful­ly, it would have picked up and run smooth­ly."

Pan en­thu­si­ast and mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ist Den­nis Ramdeen said: "Pan on the Av­enue on Car­ni­val Mon­day night was painful for me. Steel or­ches­tras spend so much time on eight min­utes of mu­sic that they can't learn an­oth­er song? "One or two bands have to break out of the pack and take an­oth­er road. The cur­rent road is a dead end, and I fear we are com­ing close to the end.

"Pan needs some in­no­va­tion and oxy­gen and no one else but pan peo­ple will fig­ure this out. Pan needs new arrange­ments–and I'm not talk­ing about the mu­sic."Asked for his thoughts on the im­pact pan had on the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, Ramdeen re­spond­ed: "The steel­band's im­pact on Car­ni­val 2014 has been con­sis­tent with its down­ward tra­jec­to­ry of the past sev­er­al years.

"Pan there­fore needs a new vi­sion. Pan needs a big idea, like when Pe­ter Ue­ber­roth made the 1984 Olympics the TV games, rais­ing close to a bil­lion US dol­lars from broad­cast rights. Pre­vi­ous to 1984, oth­ers fo­cused on sta­di­um seats to be the main sup­ply of rev­enue."Ue­ber­roth changed the prod­uct dis­tri­b­u­tion from the sta­di­um seat to the liv­ing room couch. We are still re­ly­ing on sell­ing phys­i­cal seats in one place.

"For ex­am­ple, what if we went on a mas­sive pay-per-view and YouTube thrust where we put steel­bands in world­view and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly start a con­ver­sa­tion with the world? Blog­ging and build­ing com­mu­ni­ties in­ter­est­ed in tun­ing, ar­rang­ing, or­gan­is­ing, study­ing team­work dy­nam­ics and all the oth­er great stuff that pan peo­ple are so good at?"This will mean pan peo­ple learn­ing some new skills. Skills that are no hard­er than what they do now."Pan must find oth­er mar­kets if it is to grow."