Trinidad Newsday
Socadromea huge success
SWEET FOR DAYS: A reveller in the band Bliss, plays her mas yesterday at the Socadrome in the Jean Pierre Complex.
CAROL MATROO
While most venues in Port of Spain suffered from poor crowd turnout for Carnival Tuesday, the Socadrome at the Jean Pierre Complex saw the best turnout in its five years of existence.
“This is no doubt our best year. We had a greater turnout this year. We advertised for a shorter period, but I guess that goes to show that the product speaks for itself. We also opened it up to other bands to come through. As of 2 o’clock, 2,400 people came through the drome, but I don’t have the final count,” Socadrome marketing manager Danielle Jones said at 4 pm.
She said because of the National Carnival Committee’s (NCC) route and the rules not everybody could make it to Socadrome, but hoped they could eventually open it up for everyone. In previous years non-competing bands were not allowed to pass through Socadrome.
Replies
Now I am a fan of a nice looking woman I do think t&t needs to put rules on these mas bands they are charging people an arm and a leg for next to nothing, but I guess if the people paying why should they charge less.
They is no beauty in watch fancy mas in more cause all you are seeing is skin
I don't know if people who attended, saw something different from what I saw on Television from the Socadrome. It was most boring as all you could see was Bikinis, Beads, Feathers, Boobs and Butts, just the element that has made the international visitors become disinterested in our Carnival. It should now be called T&T STREET PARTY. I shared my comments in the media last year with regard to this "New Venue", and I will maintain that if as the NCC claims that this is a "Private Event", then they should assemble, parade, and disperse at that venue. If they are to be allowed to parade the route as all other bands, then by all means, they must be subject to the rules governing all bands, as prescribed by the NCC. To all those not familiar with Carnivals outside of T & T, this very thing was attempted in Florida, with the staging of the Broward Carnival in Millennium Park, only to discover that it was an attempt at attracting the same visitors of the Miami Carnival, which eventually went belly up and is now referred to as "One Miami Carnival". On the other hand, it costs our Government millions of dollars every year, to erect and dismantle infrastructure for Carnival, which sadly is only considerably occupied for the Panorama Competition. As the saying in T&T goes, "Who have more corn, will feed more fowl". There's someone who now has more authority than the NCC, The Minister of Culture, and the Commissioner of Police. Every year I have visitors who play Mas with these bands, and the consensus is the same, "You haven't really played mas if you don't cross the Savannah Stage", and if they are allowed to, then they must be subject the prescribes of the NCC. My take is either they relocate the Competition to the Jean Pierre Complex, or simply not bother to waste all that money on the Queen's Park Savannah. Two competing Carnivals in Port of Spain????... WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!!!!!!!
Time for the powers that be take a serious step to bringing Trinidad & Tobago Carnival, back to it's world acclaim as the Greatest Show on Earth, showcasing our creativity and workmanship, not T&T Carnival, Made in China.
Well said Larry! The fact is that this enterprise is the final nail in the coffin of a divided Carnival and it seems to me we have almost gone back to the days of the high society folks playing mas on their trucks and the plebs in the road. We have virtually lost the steelbands on the road for Carnival, and as a matter of fact there are more steelbands for Pan on the Avenue than Carnival Day. This may be telling us something else too. The music trucks have also eliminated the brass bands as I saw just two live bands for the two days. The creative carnival of yesteryear is gone and what we have are the enclosed(with their ropes)street parties of these large bands, and their entourage of trucks, food and music.
Bravo , Michael David Germain, in a nutshell , you have raised many of the points I've raised over the years.
And I might add , after the "mas on truck" era , which was predominantly middle class , it was the steelbands that involved poor black , mostly young men in the carnival , playing affordable mas , with costumes that could be worn after carnival.
This issue of class was one of the reasons for resentment of the steelbands on the road by some( though there were other factors - gridlock , violence in the early days etc.)
And that is why many were happy to restrict the steelbands to the savannah via panorama , and remain so today.
The Socadrome watered down T&T Carnival, talk about a people unfixing themselves.
Is 2400 people going to be a measure of the success of the "SOCADROME"? My prediction is that when the organizers of this division of Carnival believe they have sufficient numbers, admission to the venue will no longer be Free!
Last year they offered free breakfast to the audience to attract them. I don't know if they repeated that this year, or whatever else they offered as incentive, and I have said that since the first year, that they will eventually be competing with the NCC and charge an admission fee.... We Trinis Rel Chupid Eh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!