An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is seek­ing a venue for its an­nu­al con­ven­tion af­ter its re­quest to use Queen’s Hall on No­vem­ber 22 was de­nied be­cause the venue was ful­ly booked.

The par­ty’s chair­man, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, raised the is­sue on Sat­ur­day fol­low­ing the PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing at Bal­isi­er House, claim­ing the par­ty had ini­tial­ly re­ceived ap­proval from Queen’s Hall, on­ly for the de­ci­sion to be re­versed with­out ex­pla­na­tion.

In­for­ma­tion ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia shows Bal­isi­er House re­quest­ed No­vem­ber 22, 2026, for the PNM’s an­nu­al con­ven­tion on June 12. How­ev­er, Leslie Ann Jones from the book­ings de­part­ment at Queen’s Hall in­formed Bal­isi­er House that the date was un­avail­able be­cause Queen’s Hall was ful­ly oc­cu­pied. The ad­min­is­tra­tor of Bal­isi­er House sub­se­quent­ly for­ward­ed the book­ing up­date.

Gon­za­les al­so claimed ap­proval for the PNM’s an­nu­al car­ni­val event, which is held as a fundrais­er, was re­scind­ed.

He de­scribed the de­vel­op­ments as “pol­i­tics of re­venge, pol­i­tics of ret­ri­bu­tion, pet­ty pol­i­tics at its low­est”.

The par­ty then ap­proached the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) and South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) as al­ter­na­tive venues, but Gon­za­les said it was told those venues were un­avail­able for its con­ven­tion and car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties.

NA­PA chair­man Ken­ny Phillips told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the acad­e­my was al­ready heav­i­ly booked and ex­ist­ing com­mit­ments could not sim­ply be dis­placed.

He ex­plained that NA­PA has to ho­n­our clients who have al­ready paid and se­cured their dates, re­gard­less of who they are.

“Once they’re paid, they could be wher­ev­er, the Ja­maican Na­tion­al Par­ty, I don’t care, once they paid. Be­cause we have salaries to pay, we have re­pairs to do,” Phillips said.

Phillips al­so said he was un­aware of the PNM’s re­quest and could not move an ex­ist­ing book­ing to ac­com­mo­date an­oth­er client.

“You can’t come to book a thing two months be­fore or, you know, you can’t book to­day for to­mor­row,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia checked Queen’s Hall’s on­line sched­ule for No­vem­ber and found dates oc­cu­pied by the T&T Bi­en­ni­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val.

Sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact Queen’s Hall chair­man Garfield George for a re­sponse to Gon­za­les’ claims proved fu­tile up to press time.

A source fa­mil­iar with Queen’s Hall’s op­er­a­tions said many spaces at the venue are booked as much as a year in ad­vance, adding that the per­form­ing arts venues are now “earn­ing their keep”.

SAPA chair­man Mic­ah Baksh told Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day that he did not have the book­ing in­for­ma­tion im­me­di­ate­ly avail­able be­cause the book­ings de­part­ment han­dles those mat­ters.

“De­pend­ing on what date they re­quest­ed, it prob­a­bly is al­ready booked and so un­avail­able, but I won’t be able to con­firm un­til Mon­day (to­day) when book­ings staff is in the of­fice,” Baksh said.

Baksh rec­om­mend­ed that any­one seek­ing to se­cure a date at SAPA reach out as ear­ly as pos­si­ble be­cause some clients book dates for con­sec­u­tive years to se­cure their pre­ferred pe­ri­ods.

The PNM has not an­nounced where it will stage its an­nu­al con­ven­tion.