First of all, I need to thank each and every one of you who took the time to provide such valuable, detailed feedback on  the first part of my Tuesday review. I have to say that hearing about others’ experiences made me feel better about my own experience on Tuesday, even if I didn’t enjoy it as I wanted to at the time.

The issues that arose on Tuesday were a combination of problems that lay outside the band’s control, as so many commenters have noted.  So what I’m taking on in this review is YUMA’s reaction to the issues that arose–because their response IS within their control.

I also need to point out, once again, that I am NOT affiliated to YUMA or any band—and I have never been.  I am not on any band committees. I am not paid to write this (or ANYTHING on my blog).  I did not receive a free costume, or a discount, or ANY special treatment from the band.  I blog for ME and I do not expect special treatment, nor do I want it–because special treatment usually means having to stick to the party line.

Costumes:

I played in Oracle backline and found that the costume I was given was exactly like the prototype.  As I do ever year, I spent a few hours securing the bits on mine and putting nail polish along the back of all the gems to avoid them getting caught in my tights, but that’s my usual preventative approach to costumes.  I also spent about four hours on Sunday working on Mr. Man’s costume, which was a hot unfinished mess; I had to reglue the gems, braid, and trim and extend his belt with elastic (which he ordered as a 34 and, upon measuring, we found out was only a 30!)

By the time I left home, I already had a run in my tights.  I had to remove the belt in the car to stop more runs from happening.  Now, I expected some snags (and I’m not precious about it–I have an extra pair of tights on my bag both days of Carnival), but I didn’t expect to spend all day with the gems stuck to my tights and cutting not just my tights, but my legs!!  Less than an hour into Tuesday, my belt had chewed up my tights and the Velcro had come off the belt entirely:  as I was crossing the first judging point, the Velcro snapped off and I was left scrambling to hold on to it as I tried to dance for the people in the stands and the TV cameras.  I had to secure the damn thing with safety pins—thank goodness I packed a bunch of them. I even had to take off the safety pins from the man’s legp ieces (which were fallin on him and on every other man in the band, so it seemed) and use those to secure my belt, too.  That would be five safety pins for one belt… and the thing was still falling (and it wasn’t a size matter—it fit perfectly on me when I tried it on the day I got my costume.)

I saw TONS of women in my section having that problem, as well as in other sections (though it seems some sections had more issues than others with this; Gemini belts actually looked decentstill when we crossed the stage at WAY TOO LATE O CLOCK).  By the end of the day, the metal parts around the gems had started to come undone from being caught in my tights (and more specifically, between my legs—imagine how painful that was), which led to the sharp metal scratching my inner thigh to bits.  YES, my inner leg was cut and bleeding.  The back beads went the same way; they scratched up my husband’s costume when we were dancing earlier in the day and, by 2 pm, he had to take care not to get scratched and we couldn’t dance as much as we would have otherwise.  Yep, it ruined my wining vibe, as having bleeding cuts on your inner leg would… and I’ll be wearing soft workout pants and leggings for days until the cuts heal.

The thing is, I don’t mind if I lose parts of my costume throughout the day; in fact, I take pride in knowing that I jumped around so much that I shook it off myself.  However, the costumes should at least  have held up for the first hour.

Frontliners:

The costumes themselves looked gorgeous.  HOWEVER, if I’d paid for a frontline costume with YUMA, I would have raised an unholy stink about the service.  When you play frontline, you are paying to go first:  first in your section, first across the stage.  You get space at the front of the section to parade your costume; even if you want to mingle in with the rest of the section to dance and wave and whatever, the provision should be there for you to claim it.  I saw frontliners squeezing through the crowd, having no space to move and looking mighty uncomfortable (and downright mad).  I also saw a few of them in my section moving to the BACK of the band to cross the Savannah stage because it was the only place where they would have the space to move and parade their frontline costumes.  That is completely backward logic.  I felt terrible for them, and I think it reflects very badly on the band’s view towards masqueraders who pay extra for their experience.

After the first judging point:

I had a terrible time at the first judging point because my waistband fell apart as I was jumping around and I had to disentangle it from between my legs (and pull the gems out of my tights). That’s not what I want to be doing in front of cameras.  We were then jostled pretty badly by security as we squeezed through Independence Square (though I’m not sure how we were simultaneously being squeezed in by security AND having to deal with early-morning stormers—someone please explain that for me).

The Frederick Street wait:

Once we reached Frederick Street, we chilled for a while and danced and wined.  The vibe in the band was GREAT once we were reunited with our music and drinks trucks (though it was no fun reaching the spot with no music and very few bystanders at that early hour).  However, people were dealing with costumes falling apart left, right, and center, and the drinks trucks refused to serve us at various points for reasons both bullshit and unspecified.  When you have to contemplate buying water and a beer from a vendor while playing with an all-inclusive band,  you have a situation on your hands.  But whatever.  At this point I had resolved that I would try my hardest to have myself a good time despite the painful costume situation.  Yeah, it was hot and there wasn’t much space between the trucks, but I can’t blame the band for that; it’s ALWAYS hot down there and the truck issue (and exhaust fumes from them) is to be expected, and a pretty minor thing.

Now, the vibes in the band did not die down for the entire time we sat on Frederick Street… which was from about 9:30 until 3!  However, people were leaving the band left, right, and center to sit down and relax in Woodford Square or buy their own food.  And to me, that was a real issue.

I can eat at any time of the day.  I don’t expect to be fed gourmet food on the road, and I don’t go all Jekyll and Hyde if I’m not given my lunch by X time; if I’m hungry, I’ll just go and buy something off the street (and I’ll do so happily, because I’ll look for any excuse to eat street food).  However, if your masqueraders ate breakfast at 7:30 a.m. and they’re still waiting in line at 3 p.m., the band may want to figure out a way to get people fed and happy, even if for no more selfish reason that they want the masqueraders to want to jump around and represent the band with energy when they cross the stage.  Snacks could have been distributed, or a truck sent to bring the lunch (which, given that it was warm when I finally ate it at 6:30 pm, must not have been cooked to order and on the orders of band staff  who gauged the situation and were able to put the call in for food).

Last year, we had snack trucks distributing aloo pies, popsicles, juice boxes, and water when we were stuck in one spot for a long time and at certain parts of the day.  Apparently,there were snacks at one of the trucks, but I only figured this out much later after seeing various people with snacks and, when I walked to the back of the band to use the wee-wee truck, there were no longer any snacks to be seen.

AND let’s not go into the fact that the drinks trucks (and I mean water at this stage) stopped serving at around 3 p.m. (when we approached the massive line to cross the stage).  We were boiling in the heat by NAPA, squashed in like sardines by the eight million music trucks, and no water was to be had—nor could you get out of the band to get some outside the band (though security was not letting us get out of the band and yet letting plenty of stormers in… hmm).  Because I knew that it could be a while in the sun with no drinks truck, I’d saved a bottle of water at 1 p.m., but by 4 p.m. we were still waiting to cross and that bottle was long gone… and still no water in sight.  I don’t mind carrying vex money, but as with the pies, I’d rather not be FORCED to use it on things I should be getting in an all-inclusive band.

The stage crossing

Then there’s the stage… oh, the stage.  After all that waiting, and being told by the DJs to “change our BBM status, yuh crossing de stage!!” eight million times in the hour and a half we were by NAPA and on the ramp to the stage, we were let onto the stage, en masse, many frontliners to the back of the section to have their space.  It was fun, it was fine… but I just didn’t GET IT.  I went a bit crazy dancing around because I knew that this was supposed to be THE moment, but I didn’t feel it at all.  Then we were pushed off by the band’s security, as soon as it started.  Being pushed down a smooth ramp led to some masqueraders losing their footing and sliding all around; it could have been pretty dangerous.

After crossing, I was just perplexed. Because the Savannahy stage came down before I started playing mas, I wasn’t that vested in it–my favorite part of the route is usually Ariapita and around the Savannah, where the crowds are, and I generally just love the “moving through the streets” part of the carnival experience. But I still expected to feel great crossing.  I really didn’t, because I just didn’t think that the entire hassle and wait was worth it.

After crossing the stage

Not only had I waited all day for THAT, there were no security folks or directions as to where to wait for the rest of the band.  NOTHING. I danced and wined and posed, but mostly because I felt sorry for the crowd that was watching as people were leaving the stage.  They had probably waited in line and staked out their spot by the front early in the day to get a good view of the bands and get their pictures, and yet here we were, looking tired and bedraggled and not even giving them a bit of  sass for their trouble.  I tried my best to give them something for their efforts, but it just didn’t measure up at all to the feeling of cameras and people at Ariapita.  Oh well, I thought, we must be heading to Ariapita later.

We were NOT heading to Ariapita.  And, as a band all together, we weren’t heading ANYWHERE.  There was no security to lead us the right way, our music trucks were way back down the road… it was total chaos coming off the stage.  YUMA could not have avoided the traffic hold-up and the mess from other bands; however, someone from the band should have managed the logistics better.  The band could have set up the standard bearers and a few security personnel to collect the masqueraders as they left the stage and usher them to wherever we were going next.  In the end, we just followed a group of YUMA masqueraders down Hayes and hung near the Harvard Revelers truck to get some vibes (and not be straggling along by ourselves) as we headed to the CIC grounds in hopes that there would still be food, drinks, and more parading.

The rest stop for “lunch” and the end of the day

We ate.  The food was good.  We got soft drinks.  We hung around waiting for more, but it got dark, the music trucks left one by one (leaving one or two near the rest stop), and the bars mysteriously “did not have authorization to serve” and had “power issues.”  IT WAS OVER.  Just like that, it was over—no “thanks for playing with us, YUMA people” from the band, no last call, nothing.  Where was my Ariapita lap?  Where was dancing for spectators on the street?  WHERE DID THE REST OF MY CARNIVAL GO?

What was even worse was than ending the band chaotically at the CIC grounds was… ending the damn band at the CIC grounds.  Security disappeared.  I’m not into scare-mongering about Port of Spain; I know that it can be rough, but it’s not like you’ll be killed the second you breathe in the air.  It’s about perspective, knowing where you’re going, and watching for yourself.  However, I DO know that, by the time it gets dark on Carnival Tuesday, people (both masqueraders and spectators) have been out on the streets, probably drinking and watching hot women with hot asses gyrate in tiny costumes, for hours and hours.  It’s trouble waiting to happen.  That’s why bands start and end at the same place:  you want to get your masqueraders back to the starting point safely so that they can know where to park, where to get rides, what to expect, etcetera.  As it was, there was no indication of where to go.  Anyone who didn’t know Port of Spain was basically on their own, and I felt truly sorry for those who were in this position—there are a lot of deserted side streets on Carnival Tuesday in Port of Spain.

General points

Overall, I was completely disappointed with my experience, and pretty angry, too.  As we were snaking along the traffic jam on the way home on Tuesday night, I actually thought I might not want to play mas again for a while… or ever.  And you know how I love my carnival and mas.

Since then, I’ve felt a bit better about the experience.  After all, I had zero issues from registration until Tuesday, and I had the BEST time on Monday. Many other people had the same issues I did, and the feedback helped me realize that the high energy of the masqueraders in our band was pretty exceptional, especially considering that it lasted the entire wait for the stage; I had no point of comparison on this, but I was told many masqueraders get a bit droopy at this point and just stop partying, so I’m glad that the YUMAs just kept it going for that entire long wait.

However, I can’t help but feel that the things that went wrong detracted too much from my day for me to be happy about how things went.  A costume can fall apart, but a costume should not cause cuts and bleeding scratches.  Masqueraders should not have to reglue their entire costumes.  Provisions to attend to the needs of masqueraders should be made–especially when circumstances change or unexpected snafus happen.  It’s not about ticking off the “I had a costume, I got drinks, I danced in the street” boxes when you pay THAT MUCH for an all-inclusive experience–and the fact that so many of us accept this means that this kind of mediocre, minimum-effort service will continue to happen.

I really had high hopes and I expected some teething issues on a new band, but I hoped that the experience brought onboard by the team (and the great buzz) would have mitigated some of the potential issues.  I understand that certain things fall well beyond the control of an individual band, but there were things that could have been done differently (namely costume design on the belts and men’s costumes, security, drinks availability, and general responsiveness and problem-solving when issues arose on Tuesday).  For all the communication we had on Twitter and Facebook, there was NO communication on Tuesday, both between the band and its masqueraders and within the band’s staff (both “the band” and its bar staff and security).

I don’t want to say, as I did on Tuesday, that I’ll NEVER play mas again, or that I would write YUMA off.  But whether I play with YUMA again or not will depend on their response to criticism and comments from their masqueraders.  I really hope that they respond well, because I think they had a good thing going… and I hope they can keep it going next year, regardless of whether I play with them or not.