An en­gi­neer­ing firm has been hired to as­sess the vol­ume of the Port-of-Spain pa­rade route so as to en­sure a smoother flow for next year's Car­ni­val, says Al­li­son De­mas, chair­man of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC).

In a press re­lease, De­mas said the NCC recog­nised the city's pa­rade routes were "be­ing test­ed" with every pass­ing year of the reign of the Mer­ry Monarch."While many of the bands flowed smooth­ly through the streets, we wit­nessed first-hand the con­ges­tion faced by some of the bands," De­mas added.

The NCC, which al­so pledged to im­prove the for­mat of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch and the Di­manche Gras shows, ac­knowl­edged there had been a short­fall.De­mas said: "I apol­o­gise to the au­di­ence who came out and who watched at home. We did not hit the mark on de­liv­er­ing the promised show. "While the car­ni­val and ca­lyp­so el­e­ments were there, time man­age­ment and a co­he­sive­ness were miss­ing."

The tra­di­tion­al bands, how­ev­er, were rep­re­sent­ed well on the Sa­van­nah stage, De­mas said, and the fan­cy In­di­ans and sailors re­claimed their space in the mas.

She added: "We al­so saw a new cre­ativ­i­ty in the mas from Car­ni­val bands, such as K2K and Aqua. These were new bands which brought cre­ativ­i­ty, unique­ness and ex­cite­ment to Car­ni­val 2013. We are ea­ger to see these grow.

"We see the con­tri­bu­tion Car­ni­val makes on a cul­tur­al lev­el and a so­cio-eco­nom­ic lev­el. We al­so un­der­stand the spir­i­tu­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal well-be­ing that Car­ni­val brings."We cer­tain­ly have some­thing of worth here and we are de­ter­mined to make it more valu­able."