Bandleaders protest over mas results

BANDLEADERS outraged at results of competitions judged by the National Carnival Commission (NCC), staged a protest outside the NCC’s office at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

The bandleaders claimed the NCC changed the original results of the competitions. They also alleged that the NCC merged competitions which were judged separately in previous years into one single competition. Rosalind Gabriel, bandleader for “Land of the Humming Bird”, told Newsday she originally placed first in the mini-band category of the George Bailey Award, but was told by the NCC that “an arithmetical error” had been made in the tabulation of the results. She was told she had in fact placed third. Gabriel said the NCC offered to give her the first place prize but that she would receive the third place trophy which she said did not make any sense. She claimed the NCC took three days to tabulate the results and then changed the results ten days later. Gabriel also complained that while she placed in all the categories, she was left out of the judging for the Harold Saldenha competition.

Bandleader Albert Bailey said the NCC was also unfair in grouping together the King and Queen of the Bands categories with those of the individual male and female categories. “For the past couple of years there has been separate judging for the individual male and female and the King and Queen of the Bands categories,” he said. Bailey said individual contestants usually paid $4,000 or $5,000 for their costumes, while King and Queen contestants paid more than $20,000. He added that individual contestants could not be expected to compete with the costumes from bigger bands who in the past had competed in the King and Queen Parade.