An ill-con­ceived Car­ni­val route caused chaos to Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, with one of the largest bands, Kallicha­ran, boy­cotting the judg­ing point.

Near­ly a dozen bands strug­gled to cross the stage and some bands like Jagges­sar cre­at­ed their own route to reach the judg­ing point on Har­ris Prom­e­nade.

Mar­lon Ram­per­sad, Car­ni­val King of Kallicha­ran’s Ad­dic­tive Band, crossed the judg­ing point with­out his mas­quer­aders around 11 am, while Kallicha­ran mas­quer­aders ex­pressed out­rage that they nev­er crossed the stage al­though they paid their mon­ey to be judged.

Ram­per­sad, who did a por­tray­al of a spi­der called Mara­tus, said he aban­doned his band be­cause he could not af­ford to nav­i­gate the route out­lined by the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion.

“This is a stren­u­ous year. It’s a long route along In­de­pen­dence Av­enue and I am not parad­ing with the band along the route be­cause it is hard due to the de­crease in prize mon­ey and fund­ing. There has been a cut­back across the board and I can­not af­ford to pay a truck and work­men so I de­cid­ed to stay close to the judg­ing point and cross with­out the band,” he said.

Asked why he did not wait for the band, Ram­per­sad said, “I don’t know what time they will get here. I have to make an ap­pear­ance be­fore the judges be­cause we were al­ready judged in Port-of-Spain and if we do not ap­pear in San Fer­nan­do we could be dis­qual­i­fied.”

Kallicha­ran chose not to cross the judg­ing point as its leader, Aaron, said they ran in­to a band head­ing east to west on the Prom­e­nade and it made no sense jeop­ar­diz­ing the safe­ty of their mem­bers just to have brag­ging rights and no prize mon­ey.

Some ven­dors said they did not know the route for the Pa­rade of the Bands and spec­ta­tors seemed puz­zled that there was on­ly one judg­ing point on Har­ris Prom­e­nade this year.

While mas was in full swing in Port-of-Spain, even the spec­ta­tors in San Fer­nan­do showed up late and the bleach­ers were most­ly emp­ty for the first half of the day. It was just af­ter mid­day when the scanty South­ern Mas As­so­ciates crossed the judg­ing point fol­lowed by Fire­works Pro­mo­tions at 12.43 pm.

The sec­ond big band, Jages­sar Cos­tumes, crossed at 1.13 pm. Band­leader Li­onel Jages­sar Jr said they did not go to In­de­pen­dence Av­enue be­cause the wind was too strong and could have dam­aged their cos­tumes.

“We chose our own route based on our con­ve­nience,” Jages­sar Jr said.

The con­vey­or of Car­ni­val at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, Ni­agum Joseph, ex­pressed sad­ness that Kallicha­ran chose not to cross the judg­ing point.

“It’s a sad day that one of the largest bands in San Fer­nan­do has cho­sen not to cross be­cause we tried to fa­cil­i­tate them when they com­plained about the route.”

Asked whether a lack of prize mon­ey had trig­gered the chaos, Joseph said all bands would have re­ceived a stipend for pass­ing the judg­ing point.

“It would be $15,000 per large band, $10,000 for medi­um and $5,000 for small. It’s a sad day for San Fer­nan­di­ans who would have ex­pect­ed to see them,” he ex­plained.

Joseph ad­mit­ted there was no Band of the year Prize this year, as the SFCC re­ceived on­ly $233,000 from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion com­pared to $400,000 in 2018.

Ven­dor Bob­by Mis­sette, who has been sell­ing drinks on the streets since 1989, said this year was the lat­est start to Car­ni­val ever seen in the south.

“Sales are slow. Last year around this time we had hun­dreds of peo­ple on the Prom­e­nade. It seems the pa­rade of the bands dy­ing in San Fer­nan­do but J’ou­vert is grow­ing,” Mis­sette said.

Pamela Khan, who wait­ed for three hours hop­ing to see mas, said, “My chil­dren live in the south but they play mas in Port-of-Spain. In San Fer­nan­do, there is poor or­gan­i­sa­tion. The prize mon­ey is re­al­ly small this year too so peo­ple not in­clined to come out.”

Jen­nifer Ra­moutar, who left her home in Pe­nal, said she hoped the pa­rade could have start­ed soon­er.

Twelve bands were reg­is­tered to cross the stage on Car­ni­val Tues­day com­pared to 14 last year. There was on­ly one new band, Phi­no & D Am­bas­sadors, who por­trayed Sailors of the Caribbean.

South Bands:

Alvin May­nard and Friends - Time and Time Again

A&K Fash­ion Lab- An­ces­tral Times

Just Il­lu­sions- Wakan­da For­ev­er

South­ern Mas As­so­ciates- Fan­cy Na­tives

Kallicha­ran Car­ni­val- Ad­dic­tive

Na­tion’s Peo­ple- Guardians of the Ogala Na­tions

Legall & Friends- A Cel­e­bra­tion of Dance

Pan Mas Tra­di­tions- Trib­ute to Leroy Cal­liste

Fire­works Pro­mo­tions- Ethe­re­al

Jages­sar Cos­tumes- Mn­in­con­jou

D Jam­merz In­ter­na­tion­al- A Trib­ute to South­ern All Stars