Few spec­ta­tors, scanty mas­quer­aders, bumpy roads, and tight se­cu­ri­ty marred Tues­day’s Pa­rade of Bands in San Fer­nan­do.

Se­cu­ri­ty block­ades were so tight that even me­dia work­ers with TTPS-sanc­tioned Car­ni­val pass­es were not al­lowed to en­ter some streets. Con­fu­sion ex­ist­ed be­tween traf­fic war­dens and po­lice of­fi­cers, who seemed un­aware of which streets should be opened.

The lone judg­ing point was set at Kings Wharf. Ven­dors there com­plained that there were few cus­tomers to buy their goods.

At 12.15 pm, the first band, South­ern Mas As­so­ciates, crossed the stage with their por­tray­al of “Ok­la­homa Pride,” a col­lec­tion of Red In­di­an mas. Jages­sar Cos­tumes fol­lowed an hour lat­er, along with Tra­di­tion­al In­di­an Mas Chero­kee Mus­cle Dancers, Just Il­lu­sions’ “Wel­come to the Mar­ket,” and Sheaan­na Al­leyne Pro­duc­tions’ “Sur­vive or Die.” Over 20 bands in var­i­ous cat­e­gories were ex­pect­ed to cross the stage, but by late yes­ter­day, less than eight had done so. Kallicha­ran Mas was the lone large band.

South­ern Mas As­so­ciates Band leader Sta­cy Lee Ling said her band was un­able to per­form the chore­o­graphed por­tray­al due to time con­straints.

“Our stage time was too short. I had col­lab­o­rat­ed on a mu­sic rou­tine for women em­pow­er­ment...but our stage time could have been longer,” Lee Ling said.

Co­or­di­na­tor of Judges Roslyn Jack­son said the craters in front of the stage at Kings Wharf posed some prob­lems for mas­quer­aders.

“We see the big hole in the road and two or three in­di­vid­u­als got their wheels stuck in the craters,” she said.

De­spite this Jack­son said the new route was ben­e­fi­cial for bands, es­pe­cial­ly since they came down High Street rather than go­ing up.

“The flow was bet­ter, and peo­ple seemed very com­fort­able with the new route. We did not get the con­ges­tion we usu­al­ly get for Car­ni­val,” she said.

Mean­while, some mas­quer­aders said they were hap­py with the tight se­cu­ri­ty.

Band­leader Va­lerie Al­leyne Nor­eiga said, “I en­joyed the new route; every­thing was flat. At least we should have had an­oth­er judg­ing point. They used SAPA for J’Ou­vert, so I think they could have used that as a sec­ond judg­ing point,” she said.

Band­leader of Sur­vive and Die, Shean­na Al­leyne said the el­der­ly es­pe­cial­ly en­joyed the new route.

“We had some mem­bers who came from the Unit­ed King­dom, and I must say the new route was fab­u­lous. I hope they will con­tin­ue this new route,” she said.

Ter­rence Christo­pher, Chief Body­guard from Tri­ton Body Guard Ser­vices said his team of 38 of­fi­cers had been li­ais­ing with the po­lice and sol­diers to en­sure the streets were safe.

May­or Robert Par­ris ac­knowl­edged the pot­holed street near the judg­ing point. He vowed it would be re­paired by next week. He said a meet­ing would be held with ACP Ali­cia Hen­ry re­lat­ed to po­lice mat­ters.

Par­ris added, “The peo­ple who say­ing San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val is dy­ing are those who ben­e­fit­ed from it be­fore.”