Biggest and best Panache

Panache, now it in its fifth year, increased everything but its price.

The big people party, held on Emancipation Day, moved from Bellevue, St Michael to a new location at the Barbados Polo Club, Holder’s Hill, St James.

The area provided more space for parking, dancing, mingling, added food stations and more space for bars.

With the additional space came a larger number of patrons as well and saw the all-inclusive premium event recording its biggest crowd ever.

Organiser of the event Faye Wharton Parris said the new location allowed them to make the venue what they wanted it to be.

“We recognised that our numbers were growing a bit and so that was part of the reason for moving from the location that we were at. With so many things going on it is not easy to find locations but we have worked here at the Polo Club with other events before. They are comfortable working with us so we approached them and they were fine with it. The Polo Club is an open landscape and it gave us the opportunity to lay it out as we wanted to,” Parris said.

The owner of Premium Event Services admits that patronage of the event has been extremely overwhelming.

“We have made the food area bigger, the bars bigger, brought on more staff and it really is just to make sure that the experience is what people want. We realised that every ad we placed the reach was far greater than last year. I think people are now recognising the name and the brand and what it stands for.”

Wharton Parris said the team, in order to maintain the brand experience of their patrons, were forced to turn back some people.

“We have had to turn back a lot of people. When we say we are sold out we are sold out. Up to this evening I got call from someone they had someone coming in from Trinidad and wanted to come. People came to the door and said it wouldn’t make any difference if you just sell three more tickets, but it does make a difference in terms of the experience that people have.”

“We are building a brand and the expectation of the persons coming here is very high. So we need to make sure that whether we go up in numbers that we can manage it in terms of our delivery,” she continued.

The event planner is hopeful that the keen interest in the event would help facilitate a second event outside of the Crop Over season.

“We are toying with the idea of doing something on New Year’s Day. We have the Panache fan club so usually we would tease them and get their feedback,” she said.

Along with an extensive menu and long list of drinks on offer, patrons were also treated to live entertainment by RPB and Edwin again this year. Betty B was also part of the entertainment package as well.

RPB sang sweet groovy soca songs such as If Ah Sweet Ah Sweet, I love It and Alive. But it was his Boat Ride which had the crowd rocking left and right.

Edwin came on later in the night and he too had the party goers rocking but this time it was his song Sak Pase. The crowd leaned from side to side as he invited them to join him in doing the dance. They moved in unison also when he sang: “De road is mine”… He had earlier sang Wet Me, Pump Me Up, Crank It and a few other favourites.

Sweet sounds of Alvin Toppin aka DJ Soca Superman continued to rock the crowd until the last man was standing. (IMC)