Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Even as PanTrin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore con­tin­ued to de­fend the in­clu­sion of cor­po­rate spon­sors in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah’s North Stand, long-time pan en­thu­si­asts firm­ly main­tain that the stand should be re­served for fans who ap­pre­ci­ate the art­form the most.

The con­cerns emerged when PanTrin­ba­go, on their of­fi­cial Face­book ac­count, re­port­ed that tick­ets to the North Stand were sold out for yes­ter­day’s se­mi-fi­nal rounds of Panora­ma’s large and medi­um cat­e­gories.

Sev­er­al so­cial me­dia users took to the com­ment sec­tion to ex­press their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the de­ci­sion, as they felt the in­clu­sion of more cor­po­rate en­ti­ties would lim­it the num­ber of “hard­core” pan en­thu­si­asts who could ac­cess the stands.

Re­spond­ing to the con­cerns that the “tra­di­tion­al pan lovers” who flock to the North Stand were be­ing dis­ad­van­taged yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Ram­sey-Moore in­sist­ed that cor­po­rate spon­sors, through their sup­port for the com­pe­ti­tion, were en­ti­tled to a space at the North Stand. She main­tained that cor­po­rate en­ti­ties spon­sor a to­tal of 20 steel­bands, adding “co-ex­is­tence” in the North Stand with pri­vate cit­i­zens was “on­ly fair.”

“We love cor­po­rate, they sup­port our bands, they pro­vide for them and as such, we are not go­ing to con­demn cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause they sup­port PanTrin­ba­go as a grass­roots or­gan­i­sa­tion, so we are pleased, we must co­ex­ist to­geth­er,” Ram­sey-Moore said.

“The peo­ple who are par­ty­ing in the stands there are Tri­nis. Whether cor­po­rate buys tick­ets or we give cor­po­rate tick­ets as part of their spon­sor­ship pack­age, at the end of the day it’s Trinidad and To­bag­o­ni­ans that’s fete­ing in there you know, the work­ers and their fam­i­lies so what’s it? I can’t deal with that kind of dotish pol­i­tics.”

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell, who al­so at­tend­ed the se­mi-fi­nal rounds, said while or­gan­is­ers did their best to bal­ance the ex­pec­ta­tions of cor­po­rate spon­sors and long-time steel­pan fans, the in­vest­ment from pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers was crit­i­cal.

He added that this year, PanTrin­ba­go sought to or­gan­ise be­fore­hand how much space would be al­lo­cat­ed to cor­po­rate cus­tomers and pri­vate pa­trons, but stressed the im­por­tance of cor­po­rate in­ter­est.

“Pan needs mon­ey, pan needs fund­ing, we have al­ways said that Gov­ern­ment can’t be the on­ly one and we need cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship on board,” Mitchell said.

“Pan as the or­gan­is­ers, as the pro­mot­ers, they have de­vised a plan where they sell cor­po­rate spaces, cor­po­rate spots to the cor­po­rate spon­sors, the cor­po­rate spon­sors buy the tick­ets in bulk and they use it as a sort of team-build­ing ex­er­cise that I have no­ticed for their em­ploy­ees to come to cel­e­brate and sup­port the bands that they sup­port.

“That’s what PanTrin­ba­go has de­vised. It’s a plan that they have been work­ing with, we are very hap­py for the cor­po­rate spon­sors to come on board.”

How­ev­er, even on the North Stand opin­ions were mixed, as some pa­trons were not keen on the lim­it­ed space for move­ment for pa­trons seek­ing to min­gle with friends. Pa­tron Richard Woodruffe said the di­vi­sion of por­tions of the stand in­to sec­tions could ex­clude some pa­trons.

“Peo­ple sec­tion it off ... okay, but what about the guests who don’t have a sec­tion?” he asked.

“I like the cor­po­rate in­ter­jec­tion, don’t get it wrong but I think the wider pop­u­la­tion re­quires a space al­so and noth­ing’s wrong with the cor­po­rate be­cause the cor­po­rate can spon­sor as much as they can.” An­oth­er pa­tron who was part of a com­pa­ny’s sec­tion said he was hap­py with the arrange­ment, as he felt the space was enough to com­fort­ably ac­com­mo­date cor­po­rate clients and pri­vate cit­i­zens, while al­so pro­vid­ing a more en­joy­able ex­pe­ri­ence.

“It’s re­al­ly raised the sense of com­mu­ni­ty and cam­raderie in the stands here. You see how com­pa­nies print their t-shirts for all their staff and per­sons in­vit­ed to come and take part in the event as a team or a fam­i­ly unit, it’s re­fresh­ing to have this kind of in­ter­ac­tion.”

But de­spite the dif­fer­ence of opin­ion on the North Stand, pa­trons so­cialised, shar­ing in drinks and eats, as they lis­tened to the per­for­mances while al­so groov­ing to tas­sa and rhythm sec­tions which set up in­stru­ments through­out the stand, pro­vid­ing brief en­ter­tain­ment be­tween the bands on stage.