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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Bandleaders object to parade route change

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Car­ni­val band­lead­ers are un­hap­py with pro­pos­als made by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA) for a ma­jor change to the pa­rade route for the Pa­rade of Bands on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day.

The cur­rent sug­ges­tion is to re­verse the di­rec­tion of the pa­rade to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, from east to west as it has tra­di­tion­al­ly been, to west-east, util­is­ing Wood­brook and en­vi­rons as the ma­jor artery to the com­pe­ti­tion venue. This change, it is be­lieved, will help erad­i­cate the ma­jor pile-up of bands which usu­al­ly oc­curs to get in­to the venue.NC­BA pres­i­dent Wren­wick Brown told the T&T Guardian that the plan was dis­cussed last week at a meet­ing.

"There was a meet­ing last week Wednes­day, chaired by NCC (Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee), to dis­cuss this pro­pos­al. A new plan for the pa­rade route was sug­gest­ed," he said."Once there is Car­ni­val, there are prob­lems, but I am sure that this prob­lem will be worked out.

"All com­pe­ti­tions have rules and reg­u­la­tions and the Pa­rade of Bands is no dif­fer­ent. All par­tic­i­pants must abide by the rules. The au­thor­i­ties are the ones who de­ter­mine the pa­rade route. The po­lice say what the route should be, and the band­lead­ers just have to abide by what the po­lice dic­tate."

Tech­ni­cal con­cerns

But Stephen Derek, leader of D'Mi­das As­so­ciates, said the sug­gest­ed plan en­dorsed by the NCC and NC­BA would cre­ate a dif­fer­ent prob­lem for mas­quer­aders. He said in the first in­stance, cross­ing the stage in a west-east di­rec­tion will like­ly cre­ate tech­ni­cal prob­lems be­cause mas­quer­aders will have to go against the wind.

"They don't seem to first­ly re­alise the prob­lem mas­quer­aders have on mov­ing against the east-west wind that blows through the Sa­van­nah...We al­so have the same prob­lem with Ari­api­ta Av­enue and Tra­garete Road," he said."Why is it every year, six and sev­en weeks be­fore Car­ni­val, the NCC and NC­BA come to talk of plans to im­prove Car­ni­val? Why can't they do so six or sev­en weeks af­ter Ash Wednes­day?"

He added that oth­er vet­er­an band­lead­ers had al­ter­na­tive op­tions to the one pro­posed for deal­ing with the con­ges­tion that tra­di­tion­al­ly caus­es huge pile-ups of bands at the Sa­van­nah en­trance.

"Ger­ald Hart, of Harts In­ter­na­tion­al, has a great plan to fix the con­ges­tion to the Sa­van­nah. It is to clear the way from Memo­r­i­al Square of every­body–spec­ta­tors, ven­dors–right up to the ex­it of the pa­rade com­pe­ti­tion route. Move the peo­ple who vend and stand with­in the pa­rade route, caus­ing cos­tumed mas­quer­aders to go to the stage al­most in sin­gle file. Put the spec­ta­tors in the bleach­ers, and keep them there."

Peren­ni­al is­sue

The con­ges­tion woes at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah have long been a con­cern for band­lead­ers. One of them, mul­ti-Band of the Year win­ner Bri­an Mac­Far­lane, has in fact opt­ed not to par­tic­i­pate this year in part be­cause of the long pe­ri­ods his bands have had to wait to cross the stage over the years and his dis­sat­is­fac­tion at the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the coun­try's biggest fes­ti­val.Derek al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the stag­ing of the King and Queen of Car­ni­val fi­nals on Car­ni­val Fri­day night.

"It is a waste of time try­ing to com­pete with the So­ca Monarch show by stag­ing Big Fri­day (King and Queen of the Bands fi­nals) in the Sa­van­nah," he said."Any show any­body does on that Car­ni­val Fri­day night is go­ing to flop and will be crushed by the So­ca Monarch.

"The bot­tom line is that we band­lead­ers want the King and Queen of Car­ni­val fi­nals to be re­turned to Di­manche Gras on Car­ni­val Sun­day night. How can they re­turn ca­lyp­so alone? That night has tra­di­tion­al­ly been the night for the crown­ing of the mer­ry monarch, the King of Car­ni­val.""Di­manche Gras is too long be­cause it has too many un­nec­es­sary fillers on the pro­gramme. We have the man who pro­duced the open­ing cer­e­monies for three Olympics. He holds the coun­try's high­est award.

"I know Pe­ter Min­shall can give T&T a world-class pro­duc­tion on Car­ni­val Sun­day night, com­plete with the crown­ing of the na­tion­al ca­lyp­so monarch, and king and queen of Car­ni­val."Tri­ni Rev­ellers ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Dave Cameron said he was hope­ful there would be a quick res­o­lu­tion to the is­sue."I am go­ing along with what the mas fra­ter­ni­ty de­cides...We need a unit­ed front among band­lead­ers," he said.

"The man­age­ment of Car­ni­val is the main prob­lem. The chair­man of NCC said the NCC is to legal­ly be made the co-or­di­na­tor of Car­ni­val, by an act of Par­lia­ment. Of course, this leg­is­la­tion will not hap­pen overnight."NCC chair­man Al­li­son De­mas could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day, but vice-chair­man and Re­gion­al Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee chair­man Don Sylvester said: "There is a pa­rade route com­mit­tee, which is man­aged by the NC­BA. It de­cides the pa­rade route and brings it to the NCC.

"So far, as far as I know, no route has been fi­nalised," he said.


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