Pan Trin­ba­go has an­nounced its de­ci­sion to in­def­i­nite­ly post­pone The Trinidad & To­ba­go Na­tion­al Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val (Pan Is Beau­ti­ful XII). While ag­o­nis­ing over the in­con­ve­nience, emo­tion­al dis­tress and fi­nan­cial loss to the mem­ber­ship, Pan Trin­ba­go Inc TC does not have the nec­es­sary spon­sor­ship to sup­port such an ini­tia­tive. Ac­cord­ing to Richard Forteau, Chair of the Fes­ti­val Com­mit­tee:

"In con­sid­er­a­tion of the dis­ad­van­taged po­si­tion in­to which the ma­jor­i­ty of the par­tic­i­pat­ing bands have been pla­caed with the cur­tailed prac­tice hours etc added to which, the dif­fi­cul­ties be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced to ob­tain an al­ter­na­tive date for the present venue (NA­PA) for the fi­nals, or even an al­ter­na­tive venue dur­ing the re­main­ing months of the year, has forced the de­ci­sion by the Pan Trin­ba­go's ex­ec­u­tive to in­def­i­nite­ly post­pone the Fes­ti­val-Pan Is Beau­ti­ful XII.

"Added to the above, the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency to De­cem­ber 2011 by our Gov­ern­ment, to­geth­er with the lim­it­ed fund­ing at this point in time, has placed the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive and Fes­ti­val Com­mit­tee in a po­si­tion where there was no al­ter­na­tive to the very nec­es­sary de­ci­sion. "The Ex­ec­u­tive of Pan Trin­ba­go and the Fes­ti­val Com­mit­tee sin­cere­ly apol­o­gis­es to the reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants and to the mem­ber­ship as well as the would-be fes­ti­val au­di­ence/pa­trons. "We shall, how­ev­er, con­tin­ue to pur­sue oth­er op­tions and po­ten­tials and it is our in­ten­tion to de­liv­er a suc­cess­ful event with all the glo­ry of for­mer years in the very near fu­ture."

Re-im­burse­men­ta of reg­is­tra­tion fees will be paid at Pan Trin­ba­go's Head Of­fice, Vic­to­ria Park Suites, 14-17 Park Street, Port-of-Spain, dur­ing the hours of 8 am to 4 pm.