RISHARD KHAN
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

This year's Taste of Car­ni­val has no doubt gone sour for many as the Ca­lyp­so and Ex­tem­po com­pe­ti­tions will no longer be in the show­case.

The news was con­firmed by the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) af­ter an emer­gency meet­ing, fol­low­ing its meet­ing with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) on Tues­day.

It said the $1.5 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to it was in­suf­fi­cient to put on both shows.

"The said $1.5 mil­lion was in­suf­fi­cient to host both the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch and Ex­tem­po Monarch fi­nals, the Ca­lyp­so Tents, pay­ing the ac­com­pa­ny­ing band and our sup­pli­ers. Fur­ther, $1.3 mil­lion was al­ready al­lo­cat­ed to the var­i­ous Ca­lyp­so Tents through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go to host their shows, which left TU­CO with $200,000 which was im­prac­ti­cal to host such com­pe­ti­tions in­clud­ing of prize monies.

There­fore, in the in­ter­est of Ca­lyp­so and our mem­ber­ship, the Gen­er­al Coun­cil thought it pru­dent to de­fer the com­pe­ti­tions to 2023 for a big­ger and grander pro­duc­tion," it said.

"TU­CO sin­cere­ly apol­o­gis­es for the un­avoid­able in­con­ve­nience caused to the sev­en­ty (70) plus reg­is­trants for the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch and Ex­tem­po Monarch com­pe­ti­tions and di­rects that the Zon­al Of­fices be con­tact­ed for a re­fund of the en­try fee."

In­stead, it said changes will be made to TU­CO's in­volve­ment in this year's fes­tiv­i­ties.

First­ly, the sched­uled Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta card­ed for 2 pm on Sun­day 20th Feb­ru­ary 2022, at Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do, will take the form of a Con­cert Show­down fea­tur­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In ad­di­tion, TU­CO will par­tic­i­pate in the Di­manche Gras show on Car­ni­val Sun­day, 27th Feb­ru­ary 2022, which will take the form of a Ca­lyp­so Su­per-Clash.