Pe­ter Ray Blood

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai read a $60 bil­lion-plus bud­get last week in Par­lia­ment and now the cus­to­di­ans of T&T Car­ni­val, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) and its Spe­cial In­ter­est Groups (SIGs), wait with bat­ed breath to see what quan­tum of funds will be al­lo­cat­ed to Car­ni­val 2014.On Sun­day, NCC chair­man Al­li­son De­mas told the T&T Guardian the State had doled out ap­prox­i­mate­ly $100 mil­lion to run this year's Car­ni­val.The NCC has sched­uled a launch of the Car­ni­val 2014 fes­ti­val for Oc­to­ber 26 to 27, at a venue to be an­nounced. Apart from dis­clos­ing how much the or­gan­i­sa­tion will spend on Car­ni­val, it is al­so ex­pect­ed to re­veal the for­mat of events and any changes that might be made in the struc­ture and pro­duc­tion of the na­tion­al fes­ti­val. De­mas said the or­gan­i­sa­tion will start rolling out plans for the fes­ti­val this week.In terms of mas, es­pe­cial­ly the stag­ing of the Pa­rade of Bands, one can ex­pect some sig­nif­i­cant changes to the pa­rade route for mas­quer­ade bands, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Port-of-Spain. For sev­er­al years band­lead­ers and mas­quer­aders have com­plained about the in­ad­e­qua­cy of the route, giv­en the grow­ing pop­u­la­tion of bands, and con­ges­tion caused at the main judg­ing venue, the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah.

For years some band­lead­ers have lob­bied for the draw­ing of lots, al­lo­cat­ing spe­cif­ic days for bands to pa­rade at this venue.An­oth­er peren­ni­al bug­bear has been the dis­burse­ment of prize mon­ey to kings, queens and in­di­vid­u­als, with stake­hold­ers clam­our­ing for in­creased mon­e­tary awards.One ques­tion all SIGs are hop­ing to be an­swered is about Di­manche Gras, a tra­di­tion­al pro­duc­tion which un­der­went sweep­ing changes for Car­ni­val 2013.Calls have been made to re­turn this show to Car­ni­val Sun­day night, with all its com­po­nents, in­clu­sive of the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal and the fi­nals of the King and Queen com­pe­ti­tion. This year, these fi­nals were ex­tract­ed from the tra­di­tion­al mod­el and were staged on the Thurs­day and Fri­day nights pre­ced­ing Car­ni­val week­end.Pan Trin­ba­go is ex­pect­ed to main­tain its for­mat for the Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, its fi­nals to be held on Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day night, at the Sa­van­nah.The days of the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch con­test­ing the fi­nal for $50, a sil­ver cup and a bot­tle of rum are long gone. For the past three years, win­ners have col­lec­tive­ly won $4 mil­lion. This leap in prize mon­ey was no doubt in­spired by the $2 mil­lion first prize award­ed to William Munro's In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch, Car­ni­val's biggest pro­duc­tion, staged by Caribbean Pres­tige Foun­da­tion on Car­ni­val Fri­day night.

Since Car­ni­val, the NCC has un­der­gone some sig­nif­i­cant per­son­nel changes at its helm with the de­par­ture of Clarence Moe as the or­gan­i­sa­tion's CEO. His shoes were filled by in­ter­im CEO Ed­ward Metivi­er, and al­though the NCC has re­mained silent in re­cent months on its op­er­a­tions, re­ports in­di­cate that the po­si­tion has been filled by Michael Guyadeen. One stake­hold­er of a Car­ni­val SIG said on Sun­day: "So far, things are en­cour­ag­ing, as Mr Guyadeen has been very re­cep­tive to all sug­ges­tions made to him."So, with six months left be­fore J'Ou­vert on Car­ni­val Mon­day, all fin­gers are crossed that the State and the NCC will de­liv­er the goods to pro­duce one of the best Car­ni­vals ever.

Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers' wants for 2014

�2 Paul Charles (di­rec­tor of Car­ni­val TV): "There are three things I have on my wish­list. One, the NCC needs to in­sti­tute com­pe­tent and in­de­pen­dent ex­per­tise, with knowl­edge­able peo­ple en­gaged to de­sign the route for the Pa­rade of the Bands to fa­cil­i­tate ease of move­ment and elim­i­nate the bot­tle­necks. This must in­clude a mu­tu­al­ly-ben­e­fi­cial so­lu­tion to the pan on the road chal­lenge.

"Sec­ond­ly, all the in­ter­est groups (pan; mas; ca­lyp­so; so­ca) need to put aside their re­spec­tive self-in­ter­ests to fa­cil­i­tate the pack­ag­ing and pre­sen­ta­tion of T&T Car­ni­val to the world as a sin­gle, unique brand char­ac­terised by a mul­ti-faceted ex­pe­ri­ence."And three, the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC); In­vestTT; rep­re­sen­ta­tives of our High Com­mis­sions abroad and oth­er state-pro­mot­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions need to play a sig­nif­i­cant­ly more ac­tive role in lever­ag­ing Car­ni­val to pro­mote op­por­tu­ni­ties in T&T."

�2 Dawad Philip (We Peo­ple In­ter­na­tion­al): "I am not bring­ing any band next year. San Fer­nan­do has just be­come a most dif­fi­cult kind of place to be cul­tur­al­ly. It's been this way for some­time now. Cul­ture is now in a cri­sis. Car­ni­val in San Fer­nan­do is dead. Not even a life sup­port can save it."The prize mon­ey prob­lem for this year's Car­ni­val hasn't even been re­solved as yet. The south­ern cul­ture is that peo­ple re­al­ly want to go in­to Port-of-Spain for mas. No­body has made any se­ri­ous at­tempt to de­vel­op and im­prove Car­ni­val in San Fer­nan­do."The whole sys­tem of judg­ing mas in south is de­plorable. There has nev­er been any se­ri­ous lob­by for mas in San Fer­nan­do by South stake­hold­ers to the na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion. No­body makes any mon­ey in San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val; every­body is in the red, and owes mon­ey. In South, we have to give away cos­tumes to make an im­pres­sive pre­sen­ta­tion on Car­ni­val day."Every year a post mortem is held and that's just what it is: a meet­ing to de­ter­mine what caused the death of Car­ni­val in San Fer­nan­do."

�2 Dune Ali (Car­ni­val Play­ers kid­dies band): "I'd like to see a change of route. No one looks at Car­ni­val in Port-of-Spain. The route is long and by the time the chil­dren get to the Sa­van­nah they are tired, rushed off the stage, and not al­lowed to present their band prop­er­ly be­cause the Sa­van­nah must be cleared by 3 pm for Panora­ma fi­nals."So, if chil­dren's mas was to be­gin up­town, say around by Na­pa or the top of Char­lotte Street, the bands would be able to cross the Sa­van­nah stage from 8 am. The pa­rade can end ei­ther by bands com­ing down­town or go­ing to the (Queen's Park) Oval, or some oth­er venue."The chil­dren of to­day are not the chil­dren of yes­ter­year, in terms of en­durance. That lengthy route to the Sa­van­nah is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive and not in the in­ter­est of any­one."

�2 Car­ol Hold­er (cater­er/ven­dor/Gar­den Kitchen): I have been do­ing this (vend­ing) for over 30 years and I would like to see the NCC pro­vide ven­dors with prop­er lo­ca­tions. Where ven­dors are placed bands and mas­quer­aders don't pass there. It has be­come pro­gres­sive­ly hard­er for ven­dors to earn an hon­est dol­lar on Car­ni­val, even for those of us who have been on the track of the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah for many years. The NCC gives ven­dors a run around and makes it hard­er each year for us to get ac­cred­i­ta­tion. They need to re­build booths and make them more at­trac­tive, with im­proved fa­cil­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly util­i­ties and toi­lets. It's the same booth they have been re­cy­cling and con­struct­ing for years, and Car­ni­val has pro­gressed."

�2 Ju­nia Re­grel­lo (Skif­fle Steel Or­ches­tra): "My con­cern isn't ac­tu­al­ly one with the NCC, but one with Pan Trin­ba­go. I would like to see bet­ter ef­fi­cien­cy, and more co-op­er­a­tion from law en­force­ment in get­ting bands on and off stage at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah."Long ago, the cap­tains of steel­bands had a lit­tle more au­thor­i­ty in the Sa­van­nah on Panora­ma day, by be­ing al­lot­ted spe­cial pass­es, but all that has changed. As a steel­band cap­tain, on Panora­ma fi­nal night in the Sa­van­nah, I can eas­i­ly be ar­rest­ed by law-en­force­ment per­son­nel."

�2 Sug­ar Aloes (ca­lyp­son­ian Michael Os­ouna): "The NCC and the Gov­ern­ment need to give con­sid­er­a­tion to giv­ing cul­ture a big­ger share of the mon­ey. Imag­ine over $60 mil­lion is passed in a bud­get and no men­tion is made of cul­ture, Car­ni­val, pan, chut­ney or ca­lyp­so."I would like to see those in au­thor­i­ty even try and help We­st­on (Rawl­ins), aka Cro Cro, get back his ca­lyp­so tent. The NCC needs to give TU­CO much more mon­ey than is present­ly al­lo­cat­ed to the ca­lyp­so body. No spon­sor to­day is as­sist­ing any ca­lyp­so tent, so it's left to TU­CO and the NCC to help ca­lyp­so tents and ca­lyp­so peo­ple. Prize mon­ey needs to be se­ri­ous­ly ad­dressed in ca­lyp­so."

�2 Stephen Derek (D'Mi­das As­so­ciates): "The NCC has to change the en­tire for­mat of Car­ni­val. For starters, they have to bring back Di­manche Gras on a Sun­day, with all its seg­ments. With­out that, Car­ni­val is not the same. Di­manche Gras is the pin­na­cle of in­di­vid­ual com­pe­ti­tion in all as­pects of the fes­ti­val. "Some­thing sig­nif­i­cant has to be done about crowd con­trol on the streets of the cap­i­tal on the two days of Car­ni­val, es­pe­cial­ly around judg­ing venues. Bands should not be al­lowed to have as many ve­hi­cles in bands. The prize struc­ture must be al­so re­struc­tured. But, the NCC needs to sit down with all SIGs and prop­er­ly plan Car­ni­val."

�2 Col­in Greaves (Is­land­peo­ple Mas): "We would like to see the NCC im­ple­ment prop­er road man­age­ment strate­gies to en­sure a smoother flow of bands on Car­ni­val day, tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the many dif­fer­ent facets in­volved, like crowd con­trol, se­cu­ri­ty for mas­quer­aders, man­age­ment of ven­dors, and prop­er san­i­tary con­ve­niences for spec­ta­tors and mas­quer­aders. "There is need for a greater con­sol­ida­to­ry ef­fort for all stake­hold­ers."From a per­son­al point of view, I would like to see a greater em­pha­sis to en­sure that tra­di­tion­al mas doesn't die. There's al­so need for greater mar­ket­ing of pre-Car­ni­val shows. Au­di­ences just seem to be dwin­dling in re­cent years at these shows, and our tra­di­tion­al mas is dy­ing."

�2 Dean Ackin (Tribe): "I would like to see the en­tire Pa­rade of the Bands route over­hauled. I don't have a so­lu­tion for what the au­thor­i­ties should do but I be­lieve every sin­gle band­leader wants the route rec­ti­fied. I could live with every­thing else in Car­ni­val."