The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) yes­ter­day an­nounced the can­cel­la­tion of the Ca­lyp­so and Ex­tem­po com­pe­ti­tions in this year’s ‘Taste of Car­ni­val’.

The an­nounce­ment came af­ter an emer­gency meet­ing of the or­gan­i­sa­tion yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

TU­CO said the $1.5 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to it was not enough 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 $200,000.00 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,” TU­CO said.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion added: “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 the sched­uled Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta card­ed for Feb­ru­ary 20 at Na­pari­ma Bowl, will take the form of a con­cert show­down fea­tur­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

It al­so said TU­CO will par­tic­i­pate in the Di­manche Gras show on Car­ni­val Sun­day which will take the form of a ‘Ca­lyp­so Su­per-Clash’.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell al­so damp­ened any hopes of ad­di­tion­al fund­ing by the Gov­ern­ment to fa­cil­i­tate the shows which are con­sid­ered by many as a sta­ple in Car­ni­val tra­di­tion.

Fol­low­ing news of the can­cel­la­tion of the Ca­lyp­so and Ex­tem­po com­pe­ti­tions, Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to reach Min­is­ter Mitchell and NCC Chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters for com­ment. How­ev­er, calls went unan­swered.

Reign­ing Ex­tem­po monarch Bri­an Lon­don was not too dis­ap­point­ed the com­pe­ti­tion was can­celled. He not­ed that many of the for­mi­da­ble op­po­nents would have been ex­clud­ed from the com­pe­ti­tion be­cause they were un­vac­ci­nat­ed.

“Imag­ine you got to the Crick­et World Cup and you have some of the main play­ers or some of the main teams not be­ing there and a coun­try wins that par­tic­u­lar World Cup. Would they re­al­ly feel as they won that World Cup- not be­ing test­ed by the best or al­most the best?” he told Guardian Me­dia.

In­stead, he said he is dis­ap­point­ed in how the art form was treat­ed.

“Some of our pre­de­ces­sors, the Mighty Spar­rows and the Melodies and the Atil­las and they would have fought tooth and nail to get ca­lyp­so to where it is to­day and to see it be­ing dragged down and be de­grad­ed and dis­re­spect­ed and brought back to al­most noth­ing is what I’m dis­ap­point­ed in. That is my biggest dis­ap­point­ment,” he said.

He called on oth­er ca­lyp­so­ni­ans to band to­geth­er and turn down any oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties to per­form in sim­i­lar show­cas­es.

“If it’s one time we stand to­geth­er, stand to­geth­er now. If any or­gan­i­sa­tion or any en­ti­ty calls up­on you to be a part of any­thing that re­sem­bles Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion or an Ex­tem­po com­pe­ti­tion, I call up­on you to stand firm with TU­CO and with oth­er ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and say no,” he said.

— with re­port­ing by Rishard Khan