Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor—News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell hailed Sat­ur­day night’s Pan on the Av­enue as the per­fect way to end Au­gust, which is al­so Steep­an Month.

Mitchell was chip­ping along­side Phase II Pan Groove and fel­low Cab­i­net Mem­ber Kei­th Scot­land when he spoke to Guardian Me­dia.

Pan on the Av­enue is a steel­pan Pa­rade which moves down Ari­api­ta Ave. It has be­come a pop­u­lar at­trac­tion for steel­pan out­side of Car­ni­val months. Though it’s been held on dif­fer­ent dates in the past, or­gan­is­ers have pushed for a set date to co­in­cide with In­de­pen­dence Day.

“No bet­ter event to bring to a close, steel­pan month!” Mitchell said.

“This month we had some re­al­ly ex­cit­ing events like the first World Steel­pan Fes­ti­val and of course, we cel­e­brat­ed World Steel­pan Day and we had a num­ber of dif­fer­ent events. So it’s ex­cit­ing and of course, mixed with In­de­pen­dence Day there’s a lot of pa­tri­o­tism, a lot of pride now that the Steel­pan has been de­clared by the Par­lia­ment, through law, the na­tion­al in­stru­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go so it is all that pa­tri­o­tism and pride mixed in with our cel­e­bra­tion of In­de­pen­dence.”

He said peo­ple still love the pan, even giv­en the Coat of Arms bruha­ha of the past two weeks af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that Colum­bus’ three ships on the coat of arms would be re­placed by a steel­pan.

“Whether it’s good chat­ter or bad chat­ter, good com­men­tary or bad com­men­tary, pos­i­tive, neg­a­tive, I am hap­py as long as peo­ple are talk­ing about the pan,” Mitchell said. “And I think peo­ple are talk­ing more and more about the steel­pan and pan is on­ly go­ing high­er so I am ex­treme­ly ex­cit­ed.”

Pan has been in the news a lot this month. In ad­di­tion to the Coat of Arms an­nounce­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley re­vealed Pan Trin­ba­go will get a $100 mil­lion head­quar­ters on Wright­son Road.

In a state­ment on Face­book yes­ter­day, the Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tive cel­e­brat­ed the achieve­ments of the past month as they wel­comed the month of Sep­tem­ber.

“Hap­py New Month, Steel­pan Fam­i­ly! As we close the chap­ter on an ex­tra­or­di­nary Steel­pan Month, World Steel­pan Fes­ti­val, and the T&T Na­tion­al Steel­band Fes­ti­val, we are filled with im­mense pride and grat­i­tude for the un­for­get­table cel­e­bra­tions and the mile­stones we’ve achieved to­geth­er. Thank you for be­ing part of this glob­al move­ment that con­tin­ues to el­e­vate the Steel­pan to new heights,” the state­ment read.

They said they will car­ry on the rhythm of progress, uni­ty, and pas­sion in­to Sep­tem­ber as well.