Bands predict difficult 2019 pan season

Steelband leaders predict a challenging 2019 Carnival season, as bands will now have to raise their own funds after the announcement that Pan Trinbago cannot promise stipends to players for the 2019 and 2020 seasons.

San Fernando mayor and founding member of Skiffle Junia Regrello and captain of San City Steel Symphony Aquil Arrindell said it will be difficult to raise funds, especially with the state of the economy.

For the 2017 Carnival season, players were promised a stipend of $1,000 but only got $500. In 2018, they were supposed to get $500 but received nothing.

Bands will have to find a way to cover travel and meal expenses for players for 2019 and 2020, as Pan Trinbago says it will not be able to pay them.

President of Pan Trinbago Beverly Ramsey-Moore, in a previous interview with Newsday Tobago, said steelbands will be asked to help in raising funds to assist with their players’ expenses. “I cannot, at this time, make any promise on players’ remittances for 2019 and 2020.We know that the players are a bit disappointed, but we definitely cannot afford it because we’ve seen where we’ve moved from budgets of $30,000 to $20,000.

“So we are asking bands to do whatever is necessary to raise revenues to assist in meeting the expenses for their players,” she said.

Regrello said surviving the 2019 season will be challenging.

“It is difficult (to raise funds). What exists in the economy is across the board, it does not exist for certain sectors and does not exist for the pan people (alone). We ourselves have to re-establish our position on how we go forward and how we stand and find new ways to navigate some of the expenses that we have.” Regrello says people will play pan because of their passion for the instrument, but acknowledged incentives are sometimes needed to encourage talented players. “I am optimistic that at the end of the day there are genuine pan players who love pan and want to pursue pan for the good of it and there are those who see Panorama as an opportunity. Those are people that you sometimes are forced to tolerate, because they do bring some skill sets that you need and you have to accommodate them.”

Arrindell said Panorama is not his band’s main focus, saying it is just an event in the year, as the band is also focused on education. He believes some of his players will play for nothing, but a lot of bands will find it difficult to find people to play for free.Arrindell, who highlighted the struggles of the pan fraternity on Facebook just days ago, when asked if it will be easy to raise funds, said, “Bands struggling. She (Ramsey-Moore) can’t raise money to pay our players: how are we going to raise money?

“No corporate sponsors not giving you nothing again these days. Nobody not dipping in their pocket to do anything for anybody these days.”