Carisa Lee

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell says he sup­ports the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion’s (NCC) de­ci­sion to bring back the North Stand at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah for Car­ni­val 2023.

The stand was closed in 2018 as it was deemed by the NCC as too ex­pen­sive to build. The stand had tra­di­tion­al­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed not on­ly PanTrin­ba­go’s Panora­ma events but the Di­manche Gras show, King and Queen of the Bands com­pe­ti­tion, Pa­rade of the Bands and ca­lyp­so tent clash­es dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son.

Mitchell not­ed that the NCC had in­di­cat­ed to him that the cost of erect­ing the North Stand could be re­paid through host­ing one pan event. And they have com­mit­ted to find­ing more ways to en­sur­ing that the fa­cil­i­ty is used to max­i­mum ef­fect and bet­ter mon­e­tised.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore said they asked for the re­turn of the North Stand from a busi­ness per­spec­tive, as more in­come was gen­er­at­ed when the stand was in ex­is­tence and it had paid for it­self.

Its re­turn comes in time for the 60th an­niver­sary of Panora­ma and both NCC and Pan Trin­ba­go be­lieve there is no bet­ter way to com­mem­o­rate the Di­a­mond Ju­bilee.

Ram­sey-Moore told Guardian Me­dia that peo­ple kept ask­ing for the stand’s re­turn and they be­lieve 2023 will be the best year to do so.

NCC boss Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters mean­while said the re­turn will give Car­ni­val lovers a nos­tal­gic feel­ing, es­pe­cial­ly since there was no Car­ni­val in the last two years due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.