Lau­ra Dowrich-Phillips

Pa­trons in the North­ern Greens gave thumbs down to the de­ci­sion to sep­a­rate the area from the North Stand and to de­bar en­try from the Greens to the stand at Panora­ma se­mi-fi­nals on Sun­day. "This is re­al stu­pid­ness," one pa­tron from San Fer­nan­do fumed. "Why I can't go across there and lis­ten to pan and en­joy the lime here too," he said. An­oth­er called the move fool­ish, say­ing the au­thor­i­ties would have to re­think this de­ci­sion next year. Last year, the Greens was lo­cat­ed at the back of the North Stand but the noise from the con­stant DJ mu­sic and rhythm sec­tions ham­pered the steel­bands on stage. This year it was lo­cat­ed to the west­ern end of the North Stand in an en­clo­sure that many deemed too small as throngs of peo­ple packed in­to the area to en­joy live per­for­mances from var­i­ous bands and artistes such as Machel Mon­tano and Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, who were present. A num­ber of tents, some very elab­o­rate, erect­ed by var­i­ous com­pa­nies and brands that had limes al­so con­tributed to the con­ges­tion.

Added to this, pa­trons from the North Stand were el­i­gi­ble to move be­tween both ar­eas, swelling the num­bers even more. By 3 pm, Fire Ser­vice of­fi­cers in­struct­ed of­fi­cials to seal the en­trance to the Greens from the North Stand an­ger­ing not on­ly North Stand pa­trons who paid $350 for the priv­i­lege but al­so me­dia per­son­nel who were not al­lowed to pass through. Large crowds gath­ered at both the en­trance and ex­it be­tween the Greens and the North Stand, clam­our­ing for en­try. At the ex­it, a large man in an or­ange jer­sey called the au­thor­i­ties op­pres­sors, stat­ing he had paid his mon­ey and no one was stop­ping him from gain­ing en­try. Heat­ed ex­changes en­sued be­tween the crowd, NCC of­fi­cials and po­lice as more peo­ple showed up to get to the Greens. At one point, peo­ple start­ed shak­ing the fence. Sim­i­lar scenes played out at the en­trance, even­tu­al­ly re­sult­ing in the fence be­ing torn down and po­lice clash­ing with pa­trons. Mean­while, the jam­ming went on in the Greens as peo­ple there were to­tal­ly obliv­i­ous to the may­hem.

The par­ty­ing went on till late in the night and though DJs and rhythm sec­tions to the east­ern end were mind­ful of the bands on stage, shut­ting down the mu­sic in re­spect dur­ing each per­for­mance, the west­ern end of the Greens was a non-stop par­ty. The crowd got par­tic­u­lar­ly thick when Mon­tano and his 3Ze­ro Plat­inum Rum en­tourage made their way to the Scorch tent for an im­promp­tu per­for­mance of Bot­tle of Rum and Mr Fete. Over in the North Stand, peo­ple were par­ty­ing too, though the scene was a stark con­trast to pre­vi­ous years. The stand had con­sid­er­ably less pa­trons and those who were there max­imised the space with ta­bles for their food and drinks.