Festivals Ministry to hold talks with individual Steel bands

The Ministry of Festivals and Creative Industries will be holding talks with individual steel bands across the island in a bid to ensure that a pan event is included in the lineup for Carnival 2024.

This comes after talks broke down with the Antigua and Barbuda Pan Association.

Time ran out for the association, which failed to sign their carnival contract by midday Friday. As a result, the national Panorama competition this year remains in limbo.

Festivals Minister Daryll Mathew told state media in a recent interview that a number of individual bands are not siding with the association and are prepared to engage his team.

“They’re prepared to have some discussions with us on how we can proceed and have some sort of activity for the young pannists this carnival.”

The disagreement between the two parties arose after the Minister failed to honor a request from the pan association for $400,000, compared to the $300,000 allocated in 2023.

In response, the Festivals Commission proposed providing $330,000 along with 3,500 tickets, which could generate over $100,000 in sales proceeds for the association. That offer was subsequently rejected by the pan fraternity.

Speaking directly to the situation, Mathew said talks between the two groups began in 2023 when there was a similar impasse. He suggested and proposed to the Pan Association that, rather than starting new negotiations each year, they should set a three-year plan of action.

The Minister said the government offered at that time a million dollars over three years and also gave the Pan Association the opportunity to decide how they wanted the funds distributed over that three-year period.

“That proposal was rejected, and the Pan Association indicated that they wanted to come back to the table this year. This is exactly what we’ve been trying to avoid because it simply does not give us the opportunity to plan properly for the Panorama events.

“One of the most disturbing things, though, I must say, is that when we asked the Pan Association, the executive of the Pan Association, to kindly indicate to us why they are requesting an increase of $100,000, taking it from $300,000 to $400,000, the document that was submitted to us was quite stunning,” Mathew said.

He added, “When we perused that document, which the Pan Association indicated was indicative of the cost to put a Pan on stage, a Panorama, approximately $60,000 was earmarked per band based on our understanding of the document. Approximately $60,000 was to be used for overseas panists, $30,000 for contracted players, which I understand to mean players coming to play with bands in Antigua and Barbuda, and about $28,000 for a pan tuner.

The Minister argued that if bands wish to contract players to come to Antigua and Barbuda to play for them in Panorama, it should not be on the public’s dime.

“If you’re suggesting that we put programs in place, we can partner with you on that, but to simply suggest that we need an extra $100,000, especially coming off of a year where the Pan Association received all of their funds in full before the end of August 2023, is simply unreasonable and unrealistic.”