by MICHELLE SPRINGER

Their slogan “fun comes in all sizes” is catchy, cute and absolutely correct.

The Party Central all-girl crew, who have within recent times become synonymous with their popular Sunday evening barbeque house limes, have been carving a creative and much needed niche in this year’s Crop-Over party calendar.

They, like their male counterparts Wadadah, Brewters Road Crew, Berger Boyz and Passion Network Crew, started from modest beginnings. In fact, the Party Central girls Tamara Arthur, Janelle Yarde and Melissa Harris first met during Crop-Over at one of these very fêtes.

A few years later, they took their taste for cocktails and turned it into a small business venture having noticed there was a need for it, particularly for women in the parties.

“We started out with a daiquiri bar in 2007. There were no cocktails at any of the Crop-Over fêtes, no drinks for ladies really. We don’t only drink juice,” Tamara told the SUNDAY SUN with humour.

Their first gig was in one of the Wednesday night Wadadah parties where they decided they would test the Crop-Over waters.
“When we first started it was mainly women that first came to us,” Janelle said.

The following year the girls had a presence in most of the major fêtes, including private parties and Soca Pon De Hill at Farley Hill national park.
Tamara, a marketing and communications specialist, is the creative innovator behind the trio. It was also her idea to stage the Square One reunion last year. Melissa, the executor, worked diligently trying to secure advertising sponsorship.

“Initially I came on to help the girls get half hour slots on the radio then I just eased into the group naturally. I enjoyed working with the show as I never did anything like that before,” she said.

From running a daiquiri bar to promoting the big show in honour of soca legends Square One, on a night that Trinidadian soca mongul Machel Montano was also performing, was admittedly a huge leap for the girls.

“I was chatting online to [HOTT FM’s] John Doe some time in January and he had just said on air how wonderful it would be if Square One were to get together again. I chatted him and told him I would love to do it, and he told me I should go ahead and do it,” Tamara said.

One thing led to another, and in spite of the difficulties in getting sponsorship for the event, the Party Central girls pulled off one of the biggest, most memorable concerts last year.

“Because we were new no one wanted to really give any sponsorship to put on the event,” she added.
“We got a really good response from the show as the package was a really good one. Because we weren’t really known we came to the conclusion that none of the big sponsors had any real faith in us to put on a good show, but we did it any way,”  added Melissa.

“Even though we were competing against Machel we knew we had a good product,” said Arthur, adding the thousands of patrons who turned up for the event were counted on to cover their overheads.

While most promoters this year had problems getting sponsorship for their events, Party Central had another tale to tell.

“We’ve had sponsors approach us this year. One even said, ‘anything you do, we’ll want to back you’. I said okay, great, no problem, but we’re not doing another concert this year,” Tamara laughed, adding the crew also had much success as the innovators behind the Soca Aerobics event last year.

Melissa said people were calling them for a part two to last year’s monster concert, but with other sponsorship looking grim they opted out. However, they have plans of staging other events later in the year. The genesis for their increasingly popular evening house limes was born out of the spirit of spontaneity and enterprise.

“I’ve been wanting to do them for a while now but I never really wanted to approach my mother about it because after all it’s her house. But after we did Square One, she came to me and asked if we were doing anything this year. We were talking about the lack of location and then she said yes we could do the limes at the house,” Tamara added.
And this was the beginning of June.

“But the final decision to have the limes came the Thursday before we did the first one,” she added. 
The crowds for the limes at the Husbands, St James location, they said, have grown steadily over the weeks.

Melissa puts it down to the vibe that “keeps people coming back”.
The three different personalities of the women behind Party Central bring harmony and balance to the collective.
Tamara is the creative, self-confessed, doubting Thomas of the three, while Janelle is the serious, no-nonsense get it done one. Melissa confessed, “I’m the one in the middle with a bit of everything.”

From juggling their daily routines, including day jobs, child rearing – which Tamara and Janelle do primarily as single parents – the Party Central crew agreed, balance was the key to getting it all done.

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