Fete promoters may seek legal advice over venue ban

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of South Trinidad cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions have warned the Gov­ern­ment that they may seek le­gal reme­dies af­ter abrupt bans on key event venues jeop­ar­dised prepa­ra­tions for Car­ni­val 2026.

The warn­ings came dur­ing a joint press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, which was called af­ter a let­ter was sent to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­quest­ing a re­sponse with­in 24 hours. No re­ply was re­ceived up to the time of the brief­ing.

Dami­an Ba­boolal, rep­re­sent­ing the Na­pari­ma Col­lege As­so­ci­a­tion of Past Stu­dents and South Trinidad event pro­duc­ers, said the ban on the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my site has “com­plete­ly dis­en­fran­chised the peo­ple of South Trinidad from host­ing large-scale cul­tur­al events.”

“This venue opened a brand-new eco­nom­ic win­dow for the peo­ple of South. It brought busi­ness­es alive, it brought op­por­tu­ni­ties we nev­er had be­fore, and it al­lowed res­i­dents to ac­cess cul­tur­al events with­out trav­el­ling to Port of Spain.”

Ba­boolal said the loss of the sta­di­um has had sig­nif­i­cant reper­cus­sions for his school’s fundrais­ing ef­forts.

“This abrupt, out-of-the-blue po­si­tion tak­en by the Prime Min­is­ter has de­prived my school, my alum­ni, Na­pari­ma Col­lege, of its sig­na­ture fundrais­ing event for the first year. We are still with­out a venue to this day, and this event is not a lux­u­ry. It’s the sin­gle largest source of fund­ing for the school,” he said.

Adri­an Chan­dler, speak­ing for the TTPA, high­light­ed the fi­nan­cial and op­er­a­tional chal­lenges fac­ing the sec­tor.

“You could def­i­nite­ly say mil­lions if you have to look at mon­ey be­ing spent. It’s not cheap to pro­duce an event,” he said.

“Gone are the days where a fete is set up in one day. These are ex­pe­ri­ences, and we cu­rate ex­pe­ri­ences.”

He al­so warned of the im­pact of ris­ing costs, par­tic­u­lar­ly al­co­hol pric­ing, on event vi­a­bil­i­ty.

“Al­co­hol has gone up by 60 per cent, 100 per cent in some cas­es. So, we do an­tic­i­pate some sort of loss­es. I know of oth­er events that would have been can­celled be­cause of that,” Chan­dler said.

TTPA vice pres­i­dent Asha Green pro­vid­ed fur­ther de­tails on the scale of the dis­rup­tion.

“Based on the venues that have been im­pact­ed, there would have been 12 events that need­ed to seek new homes. Of those 12 events, there are five to sev­en that are still ten­u­ous with re­spect to where their new homes are go­ing to be,” Green said.

Chan­dler stressed the broad­er eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al im­por­tance of the sec­tor.

“I sit here to­day on be­half of an in­dus­try but as a cit­i­zen con­cerned about the di­rec­tion in which we are head­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in how we sup­port and safe­guard what we know as our cul­ture, our cre­ative econ­o­my, and the tens of thou­sands of peo­ple whose liveli­hoods de­pend on this sea­son,” he said.

He added, “De­ci­sions that in­flu­ence our abil­i­ty to plan and ex­e­cute events have been com­mu­ni­cat­ed with­out full con­text and at times with­out con­sul­ta­tion.

“For an in­dus­try built on long-term plan­ning, co-or­di­na­tion, and col­lab­o­ra­tion, these shifts have cre­at­ed un­der­stand­able in­sta­bil­i­ty. Car­ni­val can­not be built on un­cer­tain­ty.”

Both Ba­boolal and Chan­dler em­pha­sised the sec­tor’s com­mit­ment to work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment but called for im­me­di­ate ac­tion and clar­i­ty.

“If it reach­es the point where if we are not con­sult­ed or we are not giv­en re­spons­es, we will def­i­nite­ly seek le­gal ad­vice,” Ba­boolal said

He added, “We are ask­ing for clar­i­ty, fair­ness and re­spect for our cul­ture. We are stand­ing here to de­fend our schools, our com­mu­ni­ties, our busi­ness­es, and our na­tion­al iden­ti­ty. This is not just about events; this is about sur­vival.”

Chan­dler added, “With­out sta­bil­i­ty, we risk los­ing the very cul­tur­al ecosys­tem that em­ploys thou­sands and show­cas­es Trinidad and To­ba­go to the world. We need a path for­ward and we need it now.”

On No­vem­ber 12, 2025, the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced an im­me­di­ate ban on fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, cit­ing per­sis­tent com­mu­ni­ty com­plaints about noise pol­lu­tion and the fa­cil­i­ty be­ing used for non-sport­ing events. The Jean Pierre Com­plex and the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um were al­so sub­se­quent­ly added to the list of sport­ing venues which could no longer be used for leisure events.