Ali­cia Llanos

Machel Mon­tano's Ad­van­tage was the most played song at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah yes­ter­day as mas­quer­aders danced across the venue for the first time in three years. Sev­er­al mas­quer­aders ex­pressed joy at be­ing able to cross the Sa­van­nah stage which they said put ex­cite­ment back in­to Car­ni­val. The stage is the cen­tre­piece of new­ly con­struct­ed Sa­van­nah fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing re­built Grand and North Stands. The venue, wide­ly re­gard­ed as the mec­ca of T&T Car­ni­val, had been closed in 2007 to make way for a state of the art Car­ni­val cen­tre that was nev­er built. Tri­ni Rev­ellers mas­quer­ad­er Ayan­na Boyce, who was root­ing for Mon­tano's song Ad­van­tage to win Road March, told the T&T Guardian: "It is about time they re­opened the stage."

Sis­ters Michelle and Monique Mar­shall, who played in the mas band Spice, al­so ex­pressed their ex­cite­ment about be­ing able to cross the stage yes­ter­day morn­ing. Harts mas­quer­ad­er Nicole Main­got said: "I am in­cred­i­bly ex­cit­ed for to­mor­row morn­ing (to­day). I missed the stage. Car­ni­val wasn't Car­ni­val with­out it." The stage's im­por­tance was seen as bands such as Mt Hope Con­nec­tion, Poi­son, Tribe and Tri­ni Rev­ellers passed through the Sa­van­nah with their mas­quer­aders danc­ing and cel­e­brat­ing to the mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment of Mon­tano's Ad­van­tage. Among the high-pro­file mas play­ers spot­ted cross­ing the Sa­van­nah stage was Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, Anil Roberts, who played in Tribe.

Not even mid­day show­ers could damp­en the rev­el­ry, as bands were ush­ered on and off the stage in a time­ly man­ner, with no in­ci­dents re­port­ed. The re­open­ing of the stage was not on­ly ben­e­fi­cial to mas­quer­aders, but at­tract­ed large num­bers of tourists who helped fill the once va­cant stands. Craft ven­dors at the Car­ni­val Vil­lage used this to their ad­van­tage as they did a thriv­ing trade, sell­ing jew­el­ry, wood carv­ings and paint­ings to pa­trons at the Sa­van­nah.