Tremaine So­ca Warn­er

Mas­quer­aders say if their con­cerns are ad­dressed by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), they will take part in the King and Queen com­pe­ti­tion this year.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day with the T&T Guardian, di­rec­tor of the T&T Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) Ger­ard Weekes said the TTC­BA had spo­ken to NCC chair­man Al­li­son De­mas, who as­sured them she would make ef­forts to ad­dress their re­quests.

"She has in­di­cat­ed that she is work­ing to have these is­sues ad­dressed," Weekes added.

Ear­li­er this year, TTC­BA mem­bers threat­ened to boy­cott the fi­nal of the King and Queen com­pe­ti­tion, which will now be held on Car­ni­val Fri­day rather than Car­ni­val Sun­day at Di­manche Gras.

Weekes said while they sup­port­ed the idea of mov­ing the event to an­oth­er day in the Car­ni­val cal­en­dar, the TTC­BA be­lieved the com­pe­ti­tion would not be a suc­cess be­cause of the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion, which al­so takes place on that day.

The TTC­BA al­so has asked for the prize mon­ey of $120,000 to be in­creased.

Weekes said oth­er com­plaints in­clud­ed the lack of prop­er back­stage bath­room fa­cil­i­ties, the need for a re­fresh­ment area for par­tic­i­pants and the poor "back­stage lo­gis­tics" which make the en­trance and ex­it of the large cos­tumes dif­fi­cult.

He said the "truck and cos­tume jam" which oc­curred be­hind the scenes of the com­pe­ti­tion made it dif­fi­cult to mount and un­mount the cos­tumes.

When mas­quer­aders left the stage af­ter parad­ing, he said, they had to car­ry their cos­tume from one end of the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah to the oth­er to find their trucks which trans­port­ed their cos­tumes.

Weekes said as long as the TTC­BA re­ceived no­ti­fi­ca­tion that its key con­cerns would be ad­dressed, there would be par­tic­i­pa­tion in the com­pe­ti­tions.

He said while he the TTC­BA await­ed a re­sponse from Du­mas, he had ad­vised that work on cos­tumes con­tin­ued to avoid the "mad scram­ble" clos­er to the com­pe­ti­tion date.

NCC chair­man Al­li­son De­mas could not be con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day as she was in meet­ings through­out the day.

Mas De­sign­ers Re­spond

Vet­er­an chil­dren's mas de­sign­er Ros­alind Gabriel said while the NCC has giv­en its as­sur­ance it would try to at­tend to the con­cerns of mas­men and mas­quer­aders, TTC­BA mem­bers were wait­ing for the NCC to re­veal what the new prize mon­ey would be.

Gabriel, in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said De­mas made it clear it would not be pos­si­ble to change the date of the King and Queen com­pe­ti­tions.

She added: "They are un­able to change the date now be­cause too many things have al­ready been done for the show. "How­ev­er, we are still not in favour of the show be­ing on Fan­tas­tic Fri­day but if the oth­er is­sues are at­tend­ed to, we would try to ac­cept it."

She said every year, King and Queen mas­quer­aders com­plained they have to pa­rade to al­most-emp­ty stands at the Sa­van­nah and, like all oth­er com­peti­tors in Car­ni­val events, they would like to have an au­di­ence present to ap­pre­ci­ate the show they put on.

She added: "Up to now, we have not heard or seen one ad­ver­tise­ment on ra­dio, in the print me­dia or on tele­vi­sion pro­mot­ing this new fea­ture on Fan­tas­tic Fri­day."

Gabriel said she hoped the TTC­BA and the NCC could come to an agree­ment soon.

She added: "We do not like de­liv­er­ing ul­ti­ma­tums. The TTC­BA is about rep­re­sent­ing mem­bers in the best way pos­si­ble. We hope every­one will turn out to the com­pe­ti­tion if we can iron out the is­sues."

Vet­er­an mas­quer­ad­er and 2012 King of the Bands Roland St George said he had not yet start­ed work on his cos­tume.

He added: "I am stick­ing to my de­ci­sion. If they (the NCC) give us some­thing then I will change my mind.

"I will not have a cos­tume of the mag­ni­tude that I am used to be­cause I will not have time for that. I am a mas­man and mas is about cre­at­ing some­thing so I will still make an ef­fort to cre­ate a good cos­tume to al­low me to com­pete."

St George said he had no prob­lem with the date be­ing changed to Car­ni­val Fri­day but the prob­lem was that "it was changed with­out con­sul­ta­tion and with­out dis­cus­sion."

He said apart from the pro­posed in­crease in the prize mon­ey, the TTC­BA hoped to see a re­vi­sion in the ad­ju­di­ca­tion process.