CHARLES KONG SOO

charles.kong­soo@guardian.co.tt

The Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah is usu­al­ly filled with pa­trons and fans and the sweet sound of the steel­pan es­pe­cial­ly when it is the Na­tion­al Panora­ma large bands fi­nals.

But be­fore the mu­si­cal clash oc­curred on stage around 7 pm yes­ter­day, a dif­fer­ent row was brew­ing that struck a sour note be­tween pan men and ven­dors when pan sides of­floaded their pans in front of the ven­dors' booths on the “Drag” (Track) as a stag­ing area be­fore they took to the stage in the com­pe­ti­tion.

The ven­dors claimed that this cal­lous ac­tion had im­pact­ed their busi­ness­es se­vere­ly. Some food ven­dors said they had no sales for the morn­ing while oth­er booths said sales were dis­mal.

Ac­cord­ing to the Pres­i­dent of the Car­ni­val En­tre­pre­neurs As­so­ci­a­tion David Bap­tiste, Skif­fle Bunch Steel Or­ches­tra, from San Fer­nan­do, which was sched­uled to per­form at po­si­tion two, de­posit­ed their pans and racks right in front of his bar af­fect­ing his sales.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian Bap­tiste said "Since yes­ter­day bands were drop­ping their pans in front of the ven­dors' booths. No mat­ter how we talk to them, it's not the first time. There's ac­com­mo­da­tion for them in the back, but no­body likes to go there, they want to be in front, es­pe­cial­ly bands who play ear­ly.

"When the Kid­dies' Car­ni­val fin­ish around 3 pm, they could bring out their pans, but they don't do that and they've been there since 2 am on Fri­day.

"Busi­ness is bad, when you block off the whole front no­body is walk­ing through the pan to pur­chase from the ven­dors on this side."

He said he spoke with Pan Trin­ba­go Pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore about the sit­u­a­tion, how­ev­er, noth­ing came out of it.

Bap­tiste said the per­cep­tion was that they do not care about ven­dors.

He said their out­look that ven­dors were at the bot­tom of the Car­ni­val hi­er­ar­chy was wrong as they al­so played an in­te­gral role in Car­ni­val.

Bap­tiste said some ven­dors were pay­ing more than $2,500 for a booth and it was un­fair to them to have to en­dure this. A food ven­dor said while she ap­pre­ci­at­ed and loved the pan, the ven­dors were pay­ing to be there, and they all want­ed to earn some­thing for Car­ni­val.

She said that some­thing had to be done bet­ter to ac­com­mo­date pan play­ers as well as ven­dors.

Roger Prescott, Skif­fle Bunch com­mit­tee mem­ber said if the band was play­ing at num­ber two and if they were sta­tioned in the rear of the sa­van­nah, by the time they reached the stage with crowds on the road, the band would be dis­qual­i­fied.

He sug­gest­ed that the ven­dors' booths could be re­lo­cat­ed "a lit­tle way back."

Prescott said that when "big bands" like Des­per­a­does, Rene­gades, Phase 2, All Stars and Star­lift were set up in the sa­van­nah, no one com­plained, but peo­ple had an is­sue with a south band like them.

He said the ven­dors would start mak­ing mon­ey af­ter 4 pm on­wards from pa­trons at­tend­ing Panora­ma as the kid­dies' bands were bring­ing their own food and drinks and not pa­tro­n­is­ing them.

Vendors' booths on the northern side of the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, were closed in by steelbands.

CHARLES KONG SOO