Kali­fa Clyne

Prize mon­ey for Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions next year may in­crease but Gov­ern­ment is look­ing at get­ting more out of its in­vest­ment. That was an­nounced by Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Lin­coln Dou­glas dur­ing yes­ter­day's launch of Car­ni­val 2013 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain.

"We might in­crease the prize monies but it will come with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of be­ing an am­bas­sador for T&T and rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try through­out the year," Dou­glas said. Car­ni­val, which will be held on Feb­ru­ary 11 and 12, is 59 days away. Dou­glas' an­nounce­ment was not the on­ly change pro­posed for next year's event.

The Di­manche Gras show, usu­al­ly held on Car­ni­val Sun­day, has been dis­man­tled, with the fi­nals of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch tak­ing place on Car­ni­val Thurs­day and the King and Queen Car­ni­val Show tak­ing place on the Fri­day be­fore Car­ni­val, dubbed "Big Fri­day". Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC)?Al­li­son De­mas could not say of what the new ver­sion of the Di­manche Gras show would con­sist.

She said a ten­der re­quest had gone out for peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in pro­duc­ing the show. She added: "You will see a com­plete­ly re­fash­ioned Di­manche Gras which will not in­clude any com­pet­i­tive as­pect. It promis­es to be a tru­ly spec­tac­u­lar event."

The Di­manche Gras show has been a part of Car­ni­val since 1948. Oth­er Car­ni­val changes in­clude:

�2 The se­mi-fi­nal of the Panora­ma steel­band com­pe­ti­tion will be held over two days and Pan Trin­ba­go will use the fi­nals of the event to cel­e­brate 50 years of the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion.

�2 The Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals will take place on Car­ni­val Thurs­day.

�2 Pan Trin­ba­go will hold a steel­band com­pe­ti­tion, called "Groovy So­ca-Mon­day Nite", on Car­ni­val Mon­day in four re­gions:

North – Ari­api­ta Av­enue;

South/Cen­tra l– Cof­fee Street, San Fer­nan­do;

East – Ari­ma; and

To­ba­go – Scar­bor­ough.

Car­ni­val changes for 2013

De­mas al­so an­nouncedthere would be changes to the pa­rade route for next year's Car­ni­val but could not say what these changes would be. "We are still in dis­cus­sion with the bands, the may­or of Port-of-Spain and the po­lice," De­mas said. She said the changes would be in terms of an ex­pand­ed route, time al­lot­ted to bands on stage and re­duc­ing the num­ber of ve­hi­cles that ac­com­pa­ny bands.

She added: "Car­ni­val 2013 her­alds the be­gin­ning of the trans­for­ma­tion of the NCC and Car­ni­val in T&T. "Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing Car­ni­val 2013, the NCC will switch gears to plan­ning for Car­ni­val 2014 and be­yond."

What Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers say

Pres­i­dent of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans or­gan­i­sa­tion Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba (Bro Re­sis­tance) said the changes were wel­come and long over­due. "I ex­pect to see that we get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­crease our rev­enue as an or­gan­i­sa­tion as well as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op what I feel is the great­est com­pe­ti­tion in our Car­ni­val, Ca­lyp­so Monarch," Masim­ba said.

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA)?chair­man David Lopez said his or­gan­i­sa­tion was hap­py with the changes but would com­ment on the ex­pand­ed route at a lat­er date. Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az al­so wel­comed the changes to Car­ni­val 2013.