Stickfighters have been left disgruntled and unhappy and are reportedly threatening to boycott this year’s activities.
They issue stems over a decision by the National Carnival Commission (NCC), to change the venue for the February 3rd preliminaries.
The Arima Velodrome was listed as the venue for preliminaries on NCC’s Carnival calendar.
However, advertisements done by the commission have been saying that the prelims will be held at the Moruga Multi-purpose and Sport Facility.
The venue, has now been shifted to Mayaro, and according to the NCC, this is due to the unavailability of the Moruga facility on February 3rd.
In a Newsday interview, Emmanuel Pierre, one of organisers for the popular Return of the Gayelle stickfighting in Moruga, said he was shocked to suddenly learn that the venue was unavailable, when he knew otherwise.
He said if this is not rectified, most of the stickfighters from the St Mary’s Gayelle would not compete this year.
Pierre told the media house what the NCC was doing was disrespectful to the Moruga community, but Peters stressed that the change in venue was a forced decision.
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