RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

T&T's beloved pan­man Joshua Re­grel­lo will sub­mit his Guin­ness World Record bid on Mon­day for the longest steel­pan marathon, which he com­plet­ed last De­cem­ber.

The 26-year-old pan­man said he is fi­nal­iz­ing the last footage of his 31-hour per­for­mance, which brought the coun­try to­geth­er at the end of 2024.

Re­grel­lo, who per­formed for over two hours out­side the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC) at Carl­ton Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do, on Fri­day, said the Cor­po­ra­tion’s recog­ni­tion was heart­warm­ing. UTC cel­e­brat­ed his achieve­ments as a young artist and pre­sent­ed him with 5,000 unit shares and com­pen­sa­tion for his per­for­mance.

Speak­ing about his record sub­mis­sion, Re­grel­lo ex­plained the chal­lenges he faced in com­pil­ing ev­i­dence.

“I spent weeks re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guin­ness and gath­er­ing footage, but the last half hour of my per­for­mance was dis­rupt­ed by fans block­ing the clock. I need­ed clear footage from that part to com­plete my sub­mis­sion,” he said.

Asked about his plans for 2025, Re­grel­lo said his fo­cus re­mains on up­lift­ing steel­pan.

“I am ex­treme­ly tired and still doz­ing. It’s more men­tal fa­tigue than phys­i­cal, but I’ve seen a deep­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion for pan since the feat,” he said.

Re­grel­lo re­flect­ed on the sig­nif­i­cance of his ac­com­plish­ment.

“Some peo­ple say I de­serve a na­tion­al award, but I be­lieve youths should be in­spired by their own po­ten­tial. Dream big. In this in­ter­con­nect­ed world, you can achieve any­thing you set your heart on,” he added.

The record-break­ing per­for­mance, which last­ed from De­cem­ber 29 to 31, has left Re­grel­lo de­ter­mined to con­tin­ue pro­mot­ing steel­pan. He al­so urged young artists to man­age their fi­nances wise­ly, es­pe­cial­ly those work­ing as  free­lancers.

“For two weeks last year, my fi­nances were so de­plet­ed I was sur­viv­ing on crack­ers,” Re­grel­lo ad­mit­ted. “I’m not skilled in fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, but I’ve learned from my mis­takes. I en­cour­age oth­ers to plan and in­vest bet­ter.”

UTC's Man­ag­er Er­i­ca Bleas­dell com­mend­ed Re­grel­lo for his ded­i­ca­tion to the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, call­ing his jour­ney a source of pride for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

She said like Re­grel­lo, the UTC want­ed to in­vest in youth de­vel­op­ment.