RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris has warned that any band leader who us­es so­cial me­dia to bring San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val in­to dis­re­pute will be dis­qual­i­fied next year.

He is­sued the warn­ing as he an­nounced the re­sults of the 2025 San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, de­clar­ing Kalicha­ran Mas the 2025 Large Band of the Year.

Jages­sar Cos­tumes won first in the Medi­um Band of the Year cat­e­go­ry, while Alvin May­nard and Friends placed first in the Small Bands cat­e­go­ry.

Paris said the 2025 Car­ni­val was well ex­e­cut­ed, but some band lead­ers were di­vi­sive.

“There are some who feel that if they don’t get their way or if they be­lieve they were not judged fair­ly, they re­sort to so­cial me­dia to bad-talk the Car­ni­val fra­ter­ni­ty. I say no to that,” the may­or said.

He said new rules would be put in place to main­tain the in­tegri­ty of the com­pe­ti­tion next year.

“Af­ter Car­ni­val, if you are in the top three and go on so­cial me­dia be­fore re­sults are giv­en, or try to bring down an­oth­er band, you will be dis­qual­i­fied,” he warned.

Par­ris al­so ad­dressed the de­lay in an­nounc­ing re­sults, which a few band­lead­ers had com­plained about.

“There is a process. The re­sults came in yes­ter­day evening. I stat­ed on Car­ni­val Tues­day that re­sults would be giv­en at the end of the week. As chair­man of Car­ni­val, I took it up­on my­self to re­lease the re­sults to­day,” he said.

Paris com­mend­ed the use of lo­cal re­cy­cled ma­te­ri­als for cos­tumes, say­ing this could be fac­tored in­to judg­ing cri­te­ria for next year.

In an­nounc­ing Kalicha­ran Mas as the win­ner, Paris laud­ed Kalicha­ran for con­tribut­ing to the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val.

Speak­ing to the me­dia af­ter col­lect­ing her tro­phy, Kalicha­ran band leader Ayan­na Kalicha­ran said Kalicha­ran Mas had won its 31st Band of the Year ti­tle, re­port­ing a 60 per cent in­crease in mas­quer­aders, in­clud­ing many for­eign na­tion­als.

She at­trib­uted their suc­cess to im­prove­ments in style and pre­sen­ta­tion. “We are very hap­py. This is our 31st ti­tle, and we are still con­tribut­ing to San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val. As the may­or said, we upped our game, and we were suc­cess­ful,” she said.

Mean­while, the chair­man of Arts and Cul­ture at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, Rayaad Ho­sein, said im­prove­ments would be made next year fol­low­ing com­plaints that there was poor light­ing near the judg­ing point at night­fall.

“We will bright­en up that area be­cause we saw it was a bit dis­mal as the pa­rade ran lat­er than usu­al. But all in all, every­body en­joyed Car­ni­val,” he said.

In the Small Band cat­e­go­ry, Alvin May­nard and Friends placed first. Jages­sar Cos­tumes won first place in the Medi­um Band cat­e­go­ry, while Fire­works Car­ni­val placed sec­ond in the Large Band cat­e­go­ry.

In J’Ou­vert, Earth AG Cus­toms won first place, while Blue Boys won first in the Tra­di­tion­al cat­e­go­ry.

Dev’s Bar­ber­shop won the Mod­ern J’Ou­vert cat­e­go­ry and al­so se­cured first place for Mon­day Night Mas.

Kyle Cowie won the South Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

First place in the Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day Fe­male In­di­vid­ual cat­e­go­ry went to Al­li­son Em­ma John, while Joel John won first place in the Male In­di­vid­ual cat­e­go­ry.

The Se­nior Queen of the Band ti­tle went to Mar­garet Mon­tano from Phillip and Friends, while Jah­mar­ley Joshu Bis­nath won the Se­nior King of the Band ti­tle. Joel Roney John placed first in the Male In­di­vid­ual cat­e­go­ry. In the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, Xhaiden Dar­ius placed first in the pri­ma­ry school cat­e­go­ry while Jime­cya Bur­nett placed first in the Sec­ondary School cat­e­go­ry.