Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra is now con­tem­plat­ing le­gal ac­tion against Pan Trin­ba­go over the band’s dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion from last Sun­day’s Panora­ma semi­fi­nal at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Val­ley Harps man­ag­er Roland Au­gus­tus said his ex­ec­u­tive has al­ready met with at­tor­neys on the is­sue and they will do what is nec­es­sary.

On Sun­day, Val­ley Harps mem­bers were left heart­bro­ken dur­ing the Medi­um Band semi­fi­nal when the band was dis­qual­i­fied for not field­ing a full com­ple­ment of play­ers. The band was ninth in line to play and some play­ers were al­ready on stage set­ting up their steel­pans when the an­nounce­ment of the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion was made.

At that time, Au­gus­tus said there had been con­fu­sion over pay­ment of the trans­port con­trac­tor and there was al­so a de­lay in the de­liv­ery of steel­pans, but not­ed all their play­ers were there.

Speak­ing at the pa­n­yard at Morne Co­co Road, Pe­tit Val­ley, yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Au­gus­tus ad­mit­ted that they had 55 pan play­ers on stage and the rest were on their way to per­form.

“We thought it was a dream and the en­tire band and the com­mu­ni­ty were in a state of shock. Our band is made up most­ly of youth and this was a blow to them. They could have al­lowed us to play. We played in the pre­lim­i­nary with the re­quired amount, and they know we had the amount to par­take,” he said.

“If we did not have the amount, still judge us and deduct points for that, but to al­low us to set up and then not play was heart­break­ing for us.”

He ad­mit­ted the band had a dif­fi­cult time get­ting the re­quired trans­porta­tion to take the equip­ment to the Sa­van­nah due to a lack of fund­ing but still made the trip to the venue.

He added, “I am not com­fort­able with that, and we felt hu­mil­i­at­ed and this shocked the en­tire vil­lage of Pe­tit Val­ley. We con­tact­ed our lawyers and we are wait­ing on them to let us know our next step be­cause we are not leav­ing this just like that.”

Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra has been in ex­is­tence for over 50 years and on­ly missed one Na­tion­al Panora­ma in 1971.

A Pan Trin­ba­go of­fi­cial re­port­ed­ly point­ed out that “the bands all know the rules” and are told to en­sure things are in place to per­form up to two hours in ad­vance.

The of­fi­cial said a count was made and the band was un­der the stip­u­lat­ed min­i­mum of 70 play­ers. There is al­so no pro­vi­sion for re­ar­rang­ing the line-up of bands.

How­ev­er, for­mer Pan Trin­ba­go vice pres­i­dent Bry­on Ser­rette yes­ter­day said he sup­ports the band’s plans to take le­gal ac­tion.

“In the his­to­ry of Panora­ma from 1963 to now, we have nev­er al­lowed a band to set up on stage and not per­form. I am not sure that the rules are clear be­cause this band qual­i­fied to be there, so it means they had the re­quired play­ers, so they should have been al­lowed to per­form, and then judges could have de­duct­ed, not re­moved the band en­tire­ly,” he said.

He added that steel­pan is an ex­pres­sion of a com­mu­ni­ty, and what tran­spired was the op­po­site of what they knew as pan­men over the years.

The Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra ex­ec­u­tive said the band feels de­ject­ed and they will now cel­e­brate Car­ni­val in their com­mu­ni­ty on­ly if they do not go ahead with le­gal ac­tion.

Har­monites Steel Or­ches­tra was al­so dis­qual­i­fied in the Large Band cat­e­go­ry. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands they had fi­nan­cial chal­lenges that did not al­low them to per­form.