Kanhai responds after booing at Carnival Village

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) Chair­man Pe­ter Kan­hai ac­knowl­edged the loud pub­lic back­lash he faced on open­ing night of the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage, say­ing the Com­mis­sion will lis­ten to the con­cerns raised about mov­ing the venue to the north­west­ern side of the Grand Stand at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Kan­hai was booed dur­ing his wel­come re­marks on Fri­day night, as some in the crowd ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the re­lo­ca­tion. He said dif­fer­ing views were ex­pect­ed and gave the as­sur­ance that the NCC will con­sid­er the feed­back while it con­tin­ues to im­prove the ex­pe­ri­ence for pa­trons.

“The de­ci­sion to re­lo­cate the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage was not tak­en light­ly. The new lo­ca­tion al­lows for the cre­ation of a more spa­cious and more in­clu­sive venue, ca­pa­ble of ac­com­mo­dat­ing larg­er au­di­ences for the wide range of cul­tur­al show­cas­es, per­for­mances and events planned for Car­ni­val 2026, all of which re­main free to the pub­lic,” Kan­hai said.

He added that the ex­pand­ed lay­out sup­ports more day­time pro­gram­ming such as school tours and cul­tur­al ed­u­ca­tion ac­tiv­i­ties to ex­pose young peo­ple to Car­ni­val’s his­to­ry and cre­ative tra­di­tions.

“The pas­sion with which the Car­ni­val faith­ful have ex­pressed their views is a pow­er­ful re­minder of how deeply the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage is val­ued,” Kan­hai said.

“We ap­pre­ci­ate the feed­back shared both at the of­fi­cial open­ing and across oth­er plat­forms and re­main whole­heart­ed­ly com­mit­ted to re­fin­ing and en­hanc­ing the Vil­lage through­out the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son,” he added.