Af­ter wow­ing judges and spec­ta­tors with their por­tray­al of “Street Jam”, Kalicha­ran Car­ni­val copped its 27th Band of Year ti­tle in San Fer­nan­do.

It was a feat no oth­er mas band can boast of in T&T.

Long­stand­ing com­peti­tor Li­onel Jages­sar and As­so­ciates was sec­ond with their pre­sen­ta­tion of  “Un­tamed Ter­ri­to­ry” and Fire Works Pro­mo­tion was third with “Fan­tasies & Fairy Tales”.

While it was a sweet vic­to­ry, win­ning the Pa­rade of the Bands com­pe­ti­tion on both Mon­day and Tues­day, vet­er­an mas-mak­er Ivan Kalicha­ran lament­ed the de­crease in mas­quer­aders this year.

The band, which is usu­al­ly sold out dropped from 800 to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 500 mas­quer­aders this year, a de­cline most bands suf­fered.

Kalicha­ran said that the slowed econ­o­my was the rea­son, even dry­ing up spon­sor­ships.

“The econ­o­my, the whole coun­try is dead. Busi­ness is bad, peo­ple are los­ing their jobs day af­ter day and peo­ple don’t have mon­ey,” Kalicha­ran said.

This was al­so a wor­ry for San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, who said many mas­quer­aders opt­ed to go to Port-of-Spain, many of whom played with Pe­ter Min­shall’s Ki­net­ic Mas. Re­grel­lo said the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee has to find new and in­no­v­a­tive ways to at­tract peo­ple to play mas in San Fer­nan­do.

He said the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion tries to make it as easy as pos­si­ble with park­ing avail­able in Skin­ner Park, which could be used as a start­ing point to join bands. This year’s Car­ni­val saw a lot of ve­hi­cles be­ing wrecked from streets which were out­side the Car­ni­val zone.

“We are mak­ing an ap­peal to San Fer­nan­di­ans to stay at home for 2021 and give our south bands the sup­port in 2021. We in the coun­cil, our team do all we can to mar­ket the band. Help these bands to im­prove Car­ni­val in San Fer­nan­do. Sure, me­dia do their part and we have stake­hold­ers meet­ing on way for­ward for a suc­cess­ful 2021,” Re­grel­lo said.

He added there are a lot of gov­ern­ment projects be­gin­ning soon that would boost em­ploy­ment. He is hope­ful that with the added rev­enue in South Trinidad, there will be an in­crease in mas­quer­aders in the south­ern city next year.

While there were few­er bands in the J’Ou­vert com­pe­ti­tion than in 2019, many of those that par­tic­i­pat­ed were filled. The J’Ou­vert (Mod­ern) Band of the Year ti­tle went to B Man and Lord Street Fu­sion Events with their por­tray­al “Ef­fin Jumbie Still Around”.

A&K Fash­ion Labs’ “Soul Train Chil­dren of the 80s” and Dev’s Bar­ber Crew’s “Cur­ry Ta­ban­ca” fin­ished sec­ond and third re­spec­tive­ly.

B Man and Lord Street Fu­sion Events’ leader, re­tired po­lice in­spec­tor An­tho­ny Charles said 2020 was his last year in Car­ni­val.

Af­ter sev­en years, he is look­ing at get­ting in­to some­thing new but will “keep it in his back pock­et” for now.

There was no com­pe­ti­tion of steel band this year.

Con­venor of Car­ni­val coun­cil­lor Naigum Joseph said the bands will re­ceive an ap­pear­ance fee.

Prizes will be dis­trib­uted on an­oth­er date as the Cor­po­ra­tion awaits funds from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion.

More re­sults

Pa­rade of the Band (Medi­um)
    1.    Legall and Friends-                        White and Pow­der
    2.    D Jam­merz In­ter­na­tion­al-              Danc­ing Na­tive Spir­it
    3.    South­ern Mas & As­so­ciates-         Danc­ing Na­tive Spir­it.

Pa­rade of the Band (Small)
    1.    Just Il­lu­sion-                                    Up, Up and Away
    2.    Alvin May­nard and Friends-          Oh Hire Pur­chase
    3.    Na­tion’s Peo­ple- Bro­ken-                Ar­row Coun­cil

Ju­nior Pa­rade of the Bands (School)
    1.    Eck­el’s Vil­lage A.C-                      In My Mum­my’s Gar­den
    2.    St Brigid’s Girl’s A.C.-                  It’s a Small World Af­ter All Dear
    3.    La Div­ina Pas­to­ra Boys R.C-        Genre of Mu­sic
    4.    Wee Ones-                                     Wee Fly­ing High

Ju­nior Pa­rade of the Bands (Non-School)
    1.    An­ra Bobb & Friends-                   Trin­ba­go We Fly­ing High
    2.    House of Jacqui-                            Iz­za Tri­ni Ting
    3.    Beach and As­so­ciates-                   It’s A Sto­ry­time.

Night Mas

    1.    San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion-     I Dream
    2.    2 Bad Pro­mo­tions-                          Ku­rudu
    3.    Roy­al­ty & Friends-                         Mid­night in Africa