Kevon Felmine

Prize mon­ey for this year's San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val may turn out to be big­ger as may­or Mar­lene Coudray said talks with the Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters re­sult­ed in an ad­di­tion­al $2 mil­lion in fund­ing as op­posed to the pre­vi­ous $1 mil­lion. This meant great news for vet­er­an mas band leader and Hum­ming Bird Award re­cip­i­ent Ivan Kalicha­ran who copped his 18th San Fer­nan­do Band of the Year. It was al­so his sixth con­sec­u­tive win in the com­pe­ti­tion. The band's pre­sen­ta­tion of We Go­ing Car­ni­val won the large band cat­e­gories on both Mon­day and Tues­day. They al­so took the Mas­quer­ad­er of the Year ti­tle which was won by reign­ing San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Queen Glo­ria Dalls­ingh.

They al­so cap­tured the ti­tle of the best Cre­ative Top­i­cal Band. Fol­low­ing close­ly be­hind in the Large Band Cat­e­go­ry was We Peo­ple In­ter­na­tion­al led by ex­pe­ri­enced cam­paign­ers Dawad Phillips and Clyde Flan­ders. The band, which gave mas lovers a won­der­ful pre­sen­ta­tion of Go­ing Down the Nile on Car­ni­val Tues­day, al­so won the ac­co­lades of Mas­quer­ad­er of the Year in Fer­nan­do Marchan who por­trayed Pi­ankhy: The Nu­bian Con­queror along with the ti­tle top An­cient His­to­ry band. Third was tak­en by Li­onel Jages­sar's por­tray­al of Fes­ti­val of Na­tions.

De­spite los­ing spon­sor­ship dur­ing the prepa­ra­tions for Panora­ma, Ju­nior Sam­my Group of Com­pa­nies Skif­fle re­tained the top prize in the Steel Band com­pe­ti­tion.

Sec­ond went to the Old Tech Steel Or­ches­tra which fol­lowed close­ly be­hind by NL­CB Fon­claire. Speak­ing af­ter the win, Kalicha­ran said: "It is a great feel­ing, I mean to win some­thing for 18 years, year af­ter year, and this is our sixth year straight we won six be­fore. So long as I have health and strength I will go." Kalicha­ran said af­ter view­ing his band at the High Street and NA­PA judg­ing points he was con­fi­dent of the win. How­ev­er, he ex­pressed his dis­sat­is­fac­tion that ve­hi­cles were trav­el­ling along the mas routes while the bands were parad­ing. He added that de­spite a per­cep­tion of mas dy­ing in San Fer­nan­do, it had been im­prov­ing. Phillips, how­ev­er, said a lot of things were go­ing wrong es­pe­cial­ly the cov­er­age his band was giv­en in the me­dia.

He held up a copy of the T&T Guardian say­ing it was the on­ly cov­er­age he had got­ten.

Say­ing that it was not a case of sour grapes, he as­sert­ed that it was sim­ply about the lev­el of the mas and con­cepts.

"My thing right about now is the peo­ple who helped me to put the band to­geth­er. So far up to this morn­ing I had an of­fer from Port-of-Spain and I will look at every­thing and I will weigh it. All through the Car­ni­val this is about the fourth time I have got­ten a call from up North. Con­venor of Car­ni­val Sel­wyn "Bun­ny" Per­sad said that San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val was in­deed a suc­cess and that there were many as­pects that could be im­proved. How­ev­er, he lament­ed the at­ten­dance of spec­ta­tors say­ing that too many peo­ple were stay­ing home to watch it on tele­vi­sion while many in at­ten­dance chose to gath­er at spe­cif­ic points. He al­so said that prize mon­ey need­ed to be in­creased in or­der to raise the stan­dard of mas with­in the south­ern city. It was cel­e­bra­tion time for San Fer­nan­do's newest band South­ern Mas As­so­ciates which took the medi­um band ti­tle in its first out­ing. Band­leader Ver­non Mo­hammed said they had com­plet­ed what they had set out to do. He said it was usu­al­ly im­pos­si­ble for Tra­di­tion­al In­di­an Mas to win a com­pe­ti­tion but they had done so. He an­nounced that next year, the band will be con­tend­ing for the large band ti­tle.

Oth­er re­sults

Band of the Year (Medi­um)

1st South­ern Mas As­so­ciates

2nd Owen Hinds Foun­da­tion

3rd Li­onel Jages­sar

Band of Year (Small)

1st Pan Mas Tra­di­tions

2nd House of White Cloud

3rd Zain­ool Mo­hammed

Mon­day Night Mas

1st Cos­sil Cul­tur­al Posse

2nd Roy­al­ty and Friends

3rd 2 Bad Pro­mo­tions

Fan­cy Sailor Mas

1st Pan Mas Tra­di­tions

J'Ou­vert Band Tra­di­tion­al

1st De Blue Boys

2nd Look Where We Reach

3rd Brown Sug­ar Boyz

J'Ou­vert Bands Mod­ern

1st Ja­ma Pro­duc­tions

2nd D' Im­age Peo­ple

3rd Mas Lover and Dem

J'Ou­vert Bands Earth

1st Body Colours

2nd D Pub J'Ou­vert Band

3rd Kool Friends