Flava-full Carnival

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

With days to go be­fore mas­quer­aders flood the streets for Car­ni­val 2026, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) deputy chair­man Ke­van Gibbs says all signs are point­ing to a bumper sea­son.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at Fla­va Vil­lage in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, Gibbs de­scribed an at­mos­phere of re­newed en­er­gy and record-break­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion, not­ing that at­ten­dance at NCC events has al­ready sur­passed last year’s fig­ures—with the Fla­va Vil­lage be­ing the most pop­u­lar of the NCC ac­tiv­i­ties.

“I had a con­ver­sa­tion with a se­nior mem­ber of the NCC man­age­ment that told me in 2025, a to­tal of 76,000 peo­ple at­tend­ed NCC events in gen­er­al,” Gibbs said.

“That would in­clude Panora­ma, Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, stick fight­ing, and all the oth­er com­pe­ti­tions. That per­son told me that we have blown that out of the wa­ter as far as at­ten­dance.”

Gibbs con­tend­ed that da­ta sug­gests the num­bers are not just in­cre­men­tal.

“I heard maybe about a week and a half, two weeks ago, we had al­ready crossed 300,000 peo­ple that have par­tic­i­pat­ed in NCC events,” he re­vealed, un­der­scor­ing what he be­lieves is a clear in­di­ca­tor that Car­ni­val 2026 is on track to be one of the most suc­cess­ful in re­cent years.

Fla­va Vil­lage of­fi­cial­ly opened on Jan­u­ary 8, in­tro­duc­ing a new cu­rat­ed culi­nary and cul­tur­al space aimed at ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for ven­dors while en­hanc­ing the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence. It is a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and the NCC. Gibbs said their da­ta showed 100,000 peo­ple had passed through the vil­lage up to yes­ter­day.

Gibbs said at the heart of the resur­gence is the Sa­van­nah, which the NCC en­vi­sions as the epi­cen­ter of the na­tion­al fes­ti­val.

“We en­vi­sion the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah as the Car­ni­val cap­i­tal. Every­thing is here. There’s no rea­son that more than one event can­not hap­pen at the same time in the Sa­van­nah,” he said.

He point­ed to Panora­ma semi­fi­nals as a prime ex­am­ple of the com­mis­sion’s ex­pand­ed vi­sion.

“When you go to the US, to Coachel­la or any one of those big fes­ti­vals, they have mul­ti­ple stages and mul­ti­ple per­for­mances hap­pen­ing at the same time,” Gibbs ex­plained.

Be­yond the num­bers, Gibbs re­as­sured the pub­lic that safe­ty re­mains a top pri­or­i­ty for Car­ni­val 2026.

“I want to say that apart from every­thing that we put in place, I al­so feel a lit­tle bit se­cure about it be­cause crime is down, whether any­body wants to ad­mit it or not,” he said. Gibbs point­ed to na­tion­al crime sta­tis­tics, not­ing that 2025 record­ed the low­est mur­der rate in ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 years.

“One of the things that I heard a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cial say in a meet­ing this week, he’s shocked at how many peo­ple are at­tend­ing Fla­va, and there have not been any in­ci­dents. Knock on wood,” Gibbs said.

He main­tained that close co­or­di­na­tion with law en­force­ment and strate­gic plan­ning has helped to cre­ate a se­cure en­vi­ron­ment, even amid swelling crowds. He not­ed that ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and lo­gis­ti­cal ad­just­ments have been a fea­ture of this year’s plans.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) is throw­ing its full sup­port be­hind the Fla­va Vil­lage ini­tia­tive, dis­miss­ing claims that it has dis­rupt­ed oth­er Car­ni­val events. Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, as­so­ci­a­tion ad­vo­cate Paige De Leon de­scribed the ex­pe­ri­ence as a “very, very good in­ter­ven­tion” that has strength­ened op­por­tu­ni­ties for en­ter­tain­ers while ex­pand­ing ac­cess for pa­trons across the board.

“The events pro­duc­tion sec­tor is very hap­py about the of­fer­ings they gave the vil­lage,” De Leon said.

“The lev­el of sup­port that that in­ter­ven­tion has re­ceived is very heart­en­ing be­cause what we al­ways look for as prac­ti­tion­ers is an en­vi­ron­ment that is well put to­geth­er.”

Since its launch, Fla­va Vil­lage has treat­ed pa­trons to live per­for­mances from artistes in­clud­ing Free­town Col­lec­tive, Naila Black­man, Iw­er George, Ravi B, Ding Dong and Patrice Roberts. Machel Mon­tano is ex­pect­ed to raise the tem­per­a­ture at the venue on Fri­day. (See page 7)

Guardian Me­dia has been told that up-and-com­ing artistes are paid for their per­for­mances, while well-es­tab­lished ones per­form at a re­duced fee or for free.

Ac­cord­ing to De Leon, Fla­va Vil­lage has done what pro­mot­ers have long ad­vo­cat­ed for, cre­at­ing a vi­brant, in­clu­sive space that spreads op­por­tu­ni­ty across the Car­ni­val spec­trum.

“The more the ecosys­tem looks good, the more it looks healthy, the more peo­ple are go­ing to be at­tract­ed to it,” she ex­plained.

“What you’ve done is you have spread across the spec­trum all of the of­fer­ings that peo­ple from dif­fer­ent back­grounds, dif­fer­ent so­cioe­co­nom­ic places can take part.”

De Leon re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the free or open-ac­cess for­mat of Fla­va Vil­lage may have si­phoned au­di­ences away from tick­et­ed con­certs and pri­vate events.

“I don’t think so at all. I haven’t heard or seen any­thing like that. I haven’t heard any­one com­plain or make those state­ments,” she said.

She ar­gued, “The more of­fer­ings and the more op­tions peo­ple have is the more in­clined peo­ple will be to par­tic­i­pate, and that’s to every­one’s ben­e­fit.”