The 58th annual St. John Festival begins Saturday afternoon. For the next six weeks, island activities will focus on music, food, parades, costumes, parades and good times/.
The first event is Pan-o-Rama, a "battle" of the pan bands (steel drums). St. John's own Love City Pan Dragons will be part of the youthful, enthusiastic entertaining event, as will be the group's junior varsity pan players, aka the Baby Pan Dragons.
The music begins at 4 p.m. at the ball field next to the Sprauve School (They'll be getting a lot of not-so-in-the-background-music across the street at Fatty Crab and La Tapa!)
Pan-o-Rama is the first big event of the Festival, although the Beach to Beach Swim, also Saturday, is part of the weekend action, too. A record-breaking 250 swimmers are expected to dive into the annual fund raiser.
In a month, Festival events will include a Food Fair, Beach Jam, and the jouvert parade - leading up to the July 4th weekend.
- Sloop Jones, creator of wearable art, has designed a shirt for Carnival. You can see it here. (Disclaimer: Sloop's a long-time advertiser, and friend.)