Although heavily criticised by members of the pan community, Pan Trinbago president Keith Diaz has defended his decision to add the Pan Splash attraction to the Greens for this weekend's Panorama semi-finals.Diaz justified Pan Trinbago's decision on Thursday by saying that the body needs the extra revenue.
"There is a pan in the countryside project which cost half million dollars and there was no corporate sponsorship for that. Where is the money coming from? It is the Greens," Diaz said after a tour of the National Carnival Commission facilities at Queen's Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain."Part of the proceeds from the Greens is going towards the bands. We want the young people to be attracted to the shows. What am I supposed to do, not attract young people to the show?"
Pan Trinbago has added Pan Splash to the Greens for this weekend's semi-final action. Its main feature will be a pool. However, the move has been knocked by pan arrangers and band leaders as disrespectful to the pan movement, especially since they believe it will compete with the competition.But Diaz said 98 per cent of pan is youth driven and called on nationals to stand with the national instrument as Pan Trinbago is "the last grass roots organisation" in the Caribbean.
"We hope you are coming out in support of all these young people who are performing. I heard quite a number of comments from the media about Pan Trinbago doing this and that.
"Let me state clearly that the expenditure for the Greens is borne by Pan Trinbago. We have to pay for the infrastructure and we came up with a new initiative to provide musical content of T&T. At the end of the day our four regions must be maintained, our staff members must be maintained and we do not get any subvention for that. We need to raise expenditure to pay for that," he said.Diaz also said everything is in place for semi-finals this weekend, which he described as the largest gathering of its kind in the Caribbean region.
"We have 58 steelbands on one day and 29 the Sunday. Over 70, 000 people will be visiting for the two days. I do not think any other festival in the region has this attendance. Bands are coming from Toco, Tobago Point Fortin, central and all over the country," he said.Given the background of the high crime rate this year, Clyde Charles, NCC head of security, told the media this year will be one of the safest, as security cameras have been installed throughout the compound.
"There are 18 cameras throughout the premises and this year we have taken Carnival seriously. We want people to know the Queen's Park Savannah is one of the safest places to party. We want this to be the premium place to party," he said.NCC chair Allison Demas also said they are working with the police and National Security Ministry to ensure that there is less "congestion" this year and everyone taking part in activities are safe.
The single pan and small bands will be first into semi-final action today at the Queen's Park Savannah from noon.