Den­nis Pan­tin

?The new Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tive suc­ceed­ed last Sun­day, in frus­trat­ing gen­uine steel­band sup­port­ers who pre­fer to en­joy the Panora­ma by be­ing on the drag or track: as an al­ter­na­tive or com­ple­ment to one or oth­er of the pay­ing op­tions. This tra­di­tion which goes back to the start of Panora­ma fa­cil­i­tates meet­ing any range of friends and ac­quain­tances, strangers even some­times, and en­gag­ing in 'ole talk' while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly en­joy­ing a range of steel­bands play­ing at the pace that the track en­cour­ages. By this move Pan Trin­ba­go has pro­vid­ed the coup de gras to the twin dis­as­ters wrought by the Man­ning regime with its de­struc­tion of the Grand Stand and the North Stand. Found­ing Pan Trin­ba­go Pres­i­dent George God­dard and oth­ers such as Arn­im Smith must be turn­ing in their graves.

Steel­band cul­ture

The ear­ly Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tives clear­ly had a philo­soph­i­cal ap­proach to the steel­band cul­ture: go with the flow of what the peo­ple want rather than go­ing against their grain. This could not have come by ac­ci­dent but must have been in­formed by long dis­cus­sions in which the pri­ma­cy of fa­cil­i­tat­ing cul­tur­al habits would have been recog­nised. To bor­row from Kitch­en­er: 'the drag make to walk on Panora­ma day.' Now a crude and crass cap­i­tal­ist men­tal­i­ty has tak­en over: 'they have to pay!' Iron­i­cal­ly, most of those who en­joy the drag are able and will­ing to pay and, if asked, could sug­gest very so­phis­ti­cat­ed op­tions since some are ex­pe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als across a range of dis­ci­plines. But no, a 'we are the boss' men­tal­i­ty (un­for­tu­nate­ly an­oth­er par­al­lel cul­tur­al trait: one of (h)ig­no­rance re­al­ly, has pre­vailed).

My own hum­ble sug­ges­tion a few weeks ago, in this col­umn, when I read of the plan for the bleach­ers (which I sup­port­ed and which did work) was to al­low easy ac­cess to and from the said bleach­ers and the track. Per­haps this was ac­cept­ed. We bought tick­ets which said 'drag' but could not find any en­trance. On the ev­i­dence, from the bleach­ers, very few seem to have been more for­tu­nate giv­en the lim­it­ed traf­fic on the drag oth­er than pan push­ers and play­ers for the two hours or so that we were there. How­ev­er, the peo­ple will have their way and the drag will quick­ly be re­con­struct­ed out­side of the Sa­van­nah and no doubt fa­cil­i­tat­ed by ven­dors: The Pan Trin­ba­go vic­to­ry will be no more than pyrrhic.

'Stick­ing to its Core Func­tions'

On the ev­i­dence suc­ces­sive Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tives have proven them­selves in­ca­pable of han­dling man­age­ment and fi­nan­cial func­tions re­lat­ed to Panora­ma. This is nei­ther sur­pris­ing nor con­dem­na­tion since it is not its core func­tion. In fact, I was im­pressed with a news­pa­per in­ter­view with new Pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az some months ago in which he ar­tic­u­lat­ed a vi­sion for the or­gan­i­sa­tion of a very pos­i­tive na­ture and did not ex­tend to pet­ty mat­ters like block­ing ac­cess to the drag. Yet the or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so seeks to per­form the man­age­ment func­tions and con­tin­ue to fail mis­er­ably on this score. We had to go to the en­trance to the bleach­ers to learn, for ex­am­ple, that tick­ets were be­ing sold 'just around the cor­ner.' This turned out to be a 'mile and a half away' at the en­trance to the Grand Shack (old grand stand).

Friend­ly but ab­solute­ly un­in­formed

A few sim­ple, big signs from the Memo­r­i­al Park end of the Sa­van­nah to say Vic­to­ria av­enue would have made a dif­fer­ence. Hav­ing re­turned with tick­ets marked 'drag' the at­ten­dants at the bleach­ers (who were quite friend­ly but ab­solute­ly un­in­formed: not their fault) did not know where was that en­trance: 'go back to the tick­et booth and ask.' The idea of an­oth­er mile and a half walk did not ap­peal so we de­cid­ed to take the chance and, naive­ly, as­sume that there would be ac­cess through the bleach­ers. No such luck. A prison ar­chi­tect, seem­ing­ly, was re­spon­si­ble for the high, very stur­dy fences at the back and front of the bleach­ers. I saw on­ly one large ex­it gate that could be used if there was need for an emer­gency ex­it but it was dou­ble pad­locked with no sign of any­one around with a key.

In case of emer­gency, the fire brigade should be in­formed, on­ly the one rel­a­tive­ly nar­row tick­et gate to the bleach­ers would be avail­able. Don't ask about the male toi­lets: they were a scream. One had to pull 'hard hard' to open them. Then there was no light. On­ly two wash basins were func­tion­al. As some­one who has been in­volved in an an­nu­al Car­ni­val fete I know that or­gan­is­ers are sup­posed to do a dry run of what pa­trons will ex­pe­ri­ence and there­by en­sure that every­thing is in place. It would be so easy for Pan Trin­ba­go to sub­con­tract tick­et sales, sig­nage and cre­ative ways of fa­cil­i­tat­ing drag ac­cess, with pay­ment to pro­fes­sion­al fete pro­mot­ers. We live and dream!