Gas price gone up and Panorama In Danger; Pan men need to be paid at least $2000 each round.
Could anyone imagine a steel band of 45 players (single pan band), and pans, and their management team, practicing every day for six weeks and then get an appearance fee of five thousand dollars. A (single) soca artist not even accepting that for himself alone. It is time Beverly Ramsey Moore and her executive, who are illegally occupying office in Pan Trinbago, be removed to allow a new executive to lobby for more money for steel bands, their management and their players.
Why is it important for pan players and steel bands to be compensated properly? Carnival is our nation’s second biggest revenue earner and now that we are not producing oil, it may be, in the near future, our biggest. At our highest with a government and a culture Minister who knows how to market the brand, “The Greatest Show On Earth” (GSE) our country generates over a billion dollars which the citizens of Trinidad & Tobago happily enjoy benefits from. The government, who acts as a promoter of the event, subcontracts the interest groups to manage different aspects of the event. The contract goes to the infrastructure and to the interest groups that act as the entertainers for the events. These interest groups are Mas, Calypso and Pan (MCP). These three aspects of our culture are what sells the carnival. Without MCP we would only have DJs on the road which could never ever be logically referred to as the greatest SHOW on earth.
Now that we have established that the entertainers of the GSE are MCP and the promoter of the show is the government, we can use the basics in promoting events for profit. Let us explore only these three:
- The more people that come to your event, the more money you make.
- The entertainment is directly linked to the attendance.
- The overall experience would determine if the patron comes to the next event and encourage others to participate.
If these statements are true to form, to ensure the event grows, the Promoter needs to invest heavily in the entertainment because if we are not paying our entertainers properly, they cannot bring their best to our product. This negatively impacts on the patron’s overall experience and as a result negatively affects future attendance. Carnival is financially drying up in Trinidad, less and less people are coming to the GSE because more and more it is proving itself not to be. Other places are providing alternatives and doing it better than us because they understand that to grow their attendees they must invest in the entertainment. At present every pan player should at least be getting $2000 per round for Panorama. Since the UNC government started in 1998 under Panday who had the political will to ensure that we all got $200 that moved $400 the following year and then to $500 in year 2000. Then PNM Culture minister Marlene Mc Donald who was so appalled by the fact that pan men were only getting $500, under her tenure she raised it to $1000. How can Beverly Ramsey Moore and the current powers that be, truly justify that pan men deserve nothing after each performance in year 2020 and most likely in 2023.
The traditional steel bands are in the majority in Trinidad and Tobago. After an average six weeks of practice, the majority walk away with nothing but debt. It has been over 20 years since there was any real increase in appearance fees. For a single band, the appearance fee is $5,000 for Panorama. Their expenses are close to $30,000 and after the new increase in gas prices, it would now look like about $40,000 for bands to get ready to be part of the entertainment for the GSE. Every time the cost of living goes up, all the bands’ service providers’ prices to go up. This has been constant for the last 20 years while we are getting less and less money. In 2015 to 2020, the Panorama budget was cut by a third and in contrast to that, gas is now three times more expensive. Here are some of the costs to bands; tuning, arranging, catering, transportation of pans and players, fabricating, painting, chroming, ply board, steel rods, metal piles, galvanized sheets, welding supplies, a welder, uniform, banners, payment for 45 players for a single pan panorama.
When Beverly Ramzey Moore got into office, she immediately stopped payment of pan players' money and gave the bands a small(fake) increase to their appearance fee. For the medium band, there was a $90,000 allocation for players and the $15,000 appearance fee, which totalled $105,000. Now what medium bands collect is $20,000 appearance fee and no money for players which now leaves the mediums bands with a deficit of $85,000 dollars in the first round for the competition. For different-sized bands the fees change but the above ratios still apply.
We are sure Beverly Ramzey Moore and her illegal executive are having the wrong conversations on our bands’ behalf, pertaining to the 2023 Carnival. She should not represent us in the negotiations because elections were to be held in October and she hijacked the organization, blaming her actions on Covid. Now that the country is back to normal, she is still trying to hold on till the end of the year whilst negotiating for her best interests and not for the steel bands she was elected to lead. Bands leaders are frustrated as the majority of them were not represented in the Taste of Carnival Show because the majority of bands were unvaccinated and therefore could not take part.
Gas prices has gone up and pan players are paying more just to reach to practice and are being paid nothing in return. Bands leaders and pan players need more money to at least break even, and if the people in office cannot even put forward a case as to why this must happen, then, move Satan move leh meh pass.
Aquil Arrindell
Captain of San City Steel Symphony
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