Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore says all 30 sin­gle pan steel­bands will now play in this year’s fi­nal on De­cem­ber 7 at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, start­ing at 6 pm.

Ram­sey-Moore said yes­ter­day the ex­ec­u­tive made the de­ci­sion be­cause they were un­able to host the semi­fi­nals last week­end due to the in­clement weath­er con­di­tions.

“We were hop­ing for an im­prove­ment from Sat­ur­day to Sun­day but that did not hap­pen, and so the ex­ec­u­tive met and we have agreed to can­cel the sin­gle pan fi­nals in its en­tire­ty, and to al­low all qual­i­fy­ing bands for the semi­fi­nals to par­tic­i­pate in the fi­nals.”

She said the bands were okay with the de­ci­sion since they ac­cept­ed it could not have been helped.

“I mean, it’s an act of God, it’s no fault of Pan Trin­ba­go and it is no fault of the bands...it was re­al­ly a dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od for all of the na­tion and so when these things hap­pen, the rules of Panora­ma em­pow­er the ex­ec­u­tive to make de­ci­sions in the best in­ter­est of all in­volved.”

She said 20 bands usu­al­ly ad­vance to the fi­nals, not­ing the bands can now use the ex­tra time to sharp­en their pre­sen­ta­tions.

“It’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty now for all of them to be on a lev­el play­ing field. Every­body is back to ze­ro points. And so, I think the com­pe­ti­tion is go­ing to be even fiercer, so it’s a good day, it’s a good day for all of us.”

Ram­sey-Moore said pa­trons who bought tick­ets for the “semis” will be re­fund­ed.