​​In­nis Fran­cis

San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val was of­fi­cial­ly launched by the city’s may­or Robert Par­ris on Fri­day. The event which took place at the San Fer­nan­do City Au­di­to­ri­um al­so saw City Month be­ing launched.

Par­ris said to cel­e­brate the 35th an­nu­al City Month, which leads in­to Car­ni­val, in Feb­ru­ary 2024, the San Fer­nan­do plan­ning com­mit­tee’s in­ten­tion is to “cre­ate a pre­mi­um event, sim­i­lar to what is held in Port- of-Spain”.

Par­ris said when plan­ning the ac­tiv­i­ties, the com­mit­tee looked at four ar­eas for im­prove­ment, which in­clud­ed tourism, cul­ture, arts and sports.

He al­so said they part­nered with sev­er­al small and mi­cro busi­ness­es for ar­eas of growth for the month-long events.

Asked about the on­go­ing com­plaints by band­lead­ers for time­ly pay­ment of cash prizes, Par­ris said it was a sit­u­a­tion he in­her­it­ed and was work­ing to re­solve that is­sue.

“We un­der­stand that fund­ing is al­ways an is­sue. Two weeks ago, we had a very mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion with NCC and the talks were very fruit­ful. So it is in that re­gard and fate we are hop­ing that all the stake­hold­ers are to­geth­er and for the first time in the his­to­ry of San Fer­nan­do that we can plan un­der­stand­ing that some­times we do have bud­getary con­straints.

“At the end of the day, with the tran­si­tions of may­ors and con­venors, there are some peo­ple that are still wait­ing. We are try­ing to get that out of the way.”

Par­ris said new to the de­vel­op­ment of San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val are tourist pack­ages with the pro­mo­tion of ho­tels and some of the events in San Fer­nan­do.

He said there are a lot of pro­mot­ers and so­ca artistes in­ter­est­ed in com­ing on board with them.

He said part of San Fer­nan­do’s Car­ni­val restora­tion is to im­prove the J’Ou­vert prod­uct, Mon­day Night Mas and Tues­day Mas.

“We have to build in­ter­est and get peo­ple to come back. Tourism is one of the sec­tors that we are look­ing to build with­in the city. We have en­gaged var­i­ous trav­el re­gions, and groups, to cre­ate pack­ages for peo­ple to come to San Fer­nan­do. So it is our vi­sion in the fu­ture when we have more ho­tels with­in San Fer­nan­do, these pack­ages will come to the city be­cause of what it is that we are putting for­ward.”

Dawad Philip was of­fi­cial­ly named the con­venor of Car­ni­val, based on his wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge he brings as a writer and his­to­ri­an.

Philip said, “We are go­ing to have a lot of tourist in­cen­tives, you are go­ing to see a lot of bus­es com­ing to San Fer­nan­do and all the his­toric sites in San Fer­nan­do are go­ing to be a part of the tour. We do not want them to come and put down your suit­case in San Fer­nan­do and car­ry their wal­lets up the road. We plan­ning to keep you with your wal­let in San Fer­nan­do and give you val­ue and qual­i­ty en­ter­tain­ment.”

Philip said af­ter years of strug­gling, San Fer­nan­do was a “desert” for pan, on a com­pet­i­tive and na­tion­al lev­el. As such, they are go­ing to rein­tro­duce the South/Cen­tral Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion to Skin­ner Park.

Philip said the Car­ni­val com­mit­tee com­pris­es mas bands such as Ivan Kalicha­ran, Rose­marie Jagges­sar, and An­tho­ny Charles, J’Ou­vert bands of the south, DJs, and TU­CO ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

Par­ris said they are hope­ful that the events dur­ing City Month, lead­ing in­to Car­ni­val 2024, will bring height­ened ex­cite­ment back to San Fer­nan­do.

He said, “We re­al­ly want to do some­thing dif­fer­ent to breathe life back in­to the city of San Fer­nan­do where peo­ple may have felt hope­less. There is hope, and I would like this ad­min­is­tra­tion to rep­re­sent hope in the city of San Fer­nan­do.”

He said so­ca artistes Ian Bun­ji Gar­lin Al­varez and Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez will add to San Fer­nan­do’s cel­e­bra­tions.