Khara Per­sad

Con­fu­sion con­tin­ued late yes­ter­day over whether par­ty bands–Tribe, Yu­ma, Bliss, Pas­sion and Harts–which were grant­ed an ex­clu­sive route for Car­ni­val Tues­day, will be al­lowed to cross the big stage at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.Af­ter a late meet­ing yes­ter­day, a new agree­ment was reached to al­low the So­cadrome bands to re-join the pa­rade route up to Cipri­ani Boule­vard af­ter they leave the Jean Pierre Com­plex, but they still can­not cross the main stage at the Sa­van­nah.

A Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) re­lease said a last-minute meet­ing man­aged to re­verse an ear­li­er de­ci­sion not to al­low non-com­pet­ing bands to re­join the nor­mal pa­rade route. Sent out close to 6 pm yes­ter­day, it said the po­lice agreed to a con­ces­sion and the ex­tend­ed route will al­low bands to leave the So­cadrome and pa­rade on Tra­garete Road and Ari­api­ta Av­enue to­ward their mas camps.

How­ev­er, the or­gan­is­ers of the So­cadrome said yes­ter­day that the bands have not to­tal­ly ruled out cross­ing the Sa­van­nah stage, which is seen as the ul­ti­mate goal of mas­quer­aders. They said, how­ev­er, that they would al­low the bands ac­tu­al­ly com­pet­ing in the Pa­rade of the Bands com­pe­ti­tions pri­or­i­ty in cross­ing the main judg­ing point.

The ear­li­er ban

A re­lease is­sued ear­li­er yes­ter­day by the NCC out­lined a spe­cif­ic route, al­so out­side of the tra­di­tion­al route, but which al­so ex­clud­ed the Sa­van­nah stage.Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Earl Gon­za­les said the bands would not be fol­low­ing the tra­di­tion­al route and so would not be al­lowed to re­join the pa­rade once they have left the So­cadrome. In­stead, the bands could move west on Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

That de­ci­sion was tak­en at a meet­ing on Thurs­day to fi­nalise plans for the route for the Pa­rade of the Bands on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day.NCC chair­man Al­li­son De­mas, Gon­za­les, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Ram­sub­hag, chair­man of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre Mervyn Richard­son and Sam Lewis, from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA), met with oth­er se­cu­ri­ty stake­hold­ers and band­lead­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, Gon­za­les asked the bands to com­ply, as it was the con­di­tion up­on which they were grant­ed the new arrange­ment.The ear­li­er NCC re­lease yes­ter­day said each band will be as­signed Re­act (Ra­dio Emer­gency As­so­ci­at­ed Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Team) of­fi­cers to mon­i­tor their move­ments. There will be 220 road mar­shals, ten route man­agers and ten as­sis­tants, iden­ti­fied by ma­roon T-shirts and flu­o­res­cent or­ange vests mon­i­tor­ing the bands.

The NC­BA's Lewis urged band­lead­ers to com­ply with di­rec­tives.

Spe­cial Ex­tend­ed route for car­ni­val

Tues­day 8 am-4 pm:

In­to the So­cadrome:

�2 Bands will move west along Queen's Park West from Vic­to­ria Av­enue, con­tin­u­ing west along St Clair Av­enue to Roxy Round­about

�2 South on Dami­an Street and Tay­lor Street

�2 West on Ari­api­ta Av­enue on­to Mar­aval Park­way, en­ter­ing the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um through the Cas­tro Gate

�2 An­ti-clock­wise around the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in­to the Jean Pierre Com­plex.

Out of the So­cadrome:

�2 Af­ter cross­ing the stage, bands will ex­it on­to Fitzblack­man Dri­ve

�2 North along Hamil­ton Hold­er Street

�2 East on­to Ari­api­ta Av­enue and Park Street to Green Cor­ner

�2 West­ward along Tra­garete Road, then up Cipri­ani Boule­vard and on­ward to their mas camps.