Mas bands report steady sales ahead of Carnival despite rising costs

Carisa Lee

Re­porter

[email protected]

With ap­prox­i­mate­ly one month to go un­til Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, mas­quer­aders can vis­it at least four bands across the coun­try to pur­chase cos­tumes, with lead­ers re­port­ing that sales are gen­er­al­ly steady, though not ex­plo­sive.

Li­onel Jagges­sar Jr, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Jagges­sar Cos­tumes, said this is typ­i­cal for San Fer­nan­do, where mas­quer­aders of­ten reg­is­ter late—some­times just days be­fore Car­ni­val. In­ter­est in his band has been steady since the end of last year.

“So, we’ve had in­ter­est since No­vem­ber. Peo­ple know that we’re com­ing out with the band, so they would vis­it, mes­sage the page and show in­ter­est, but sales have al­ways been dwin­dling,” he said.

His 2026 pre­sen­ta­tion, “On the Eve of Bat­tle,” was de­lib­er­ate­ly themed to re­flect cur­rent glob­al and re­gion­al is­sues. How­ev­er, Jagges­sar Jr said there were no can­cel­la­tions di­rect­ly linked to these ten­sions.

“Some peo­ple are scared, but not our mas­quer­aders so much. No­body per­son­al­ly came and said, ‘We’re not play­ing mas be­cause of the sit­u­a­tion,’” he said.

Oth­er band lead­ers shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments. Ron­nie McIn­tosh of Ron­nie and Caro, Col­in Prov­i­dence of Ex­ou­sia Mas, and Tracey An­dre of Pa­parazzi all re­port­ed no ma­jor dis­rup­tions due to re­gion­al or in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues.

Jagges­sar Jr not­ed that some in­ter­na­tion­al mas­quer­aders had can­celled, large­ly due to high air­fare costs.

“The price of tick­ets to come to Trinidad to play mas is prob­a­bly five times the cost of the ac­tu­al cos­tume. A whole trip does not cost as much as the tick­et, and a lot of peo­ple are not will­ing to pay the ex­tra mon­ey to trav­el,” he said.

Three of the four band lead­ers said the lo­cal eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion has not sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect­ed sales. An­dre said some cus­tomers are now pur­chas­ing more in­ten­tion­al­ly, plan­ning ear­li­er or opt­ing for spe­cif­ic sec­tions or bud­get-friend­ly op­tions such as Mon­day-on­ly pack­ages. McIn­tosh told Guardian Me­dia that Car­ni­val re­mains a pri­or­i­ty for many, and no ma­jor changes in pur­chas­ing be­hav­iour have been ob­served.

Prov­i­dence not­ed that while Ex­ou­sia Mas has not ex­pe­ri­enced many can­cel­la­tions, over­all reg­is­tra­tions are down, pos­si­bly re­flect­ing the eco­nom­ic cli­mate.

“Reg­is­tra­tions are down by about 30 per cent this year. We re­main hope­ful there will be a last-minute surge in sign-ups as Car­ni­val ap­proach­es,” he said.

All four bands have been af­fect­ed by the Gov­ern­ment’s in­crease in al­co­hol prices in the 2025/2026 Bud­get, when the sug­gest­ed re­tail price of a bot­tle of Carib or Stag beer rose from ap­prox­i­mate­ly $10 to $13. Band lead­ers said their prices had been set pri­or to the an­nounce­ment, mean­ing they had to ab­sorb the ad­di­tion­al costs.

An­dre said care­ful ex­pense man­age­ment and co­or­di­na­tion with sup­pli­ers helped en­sure there was no neg­a­tive im­pact on the mas­quer­ad­er ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Ris­ing op­er­a­tional costs are an in­dus­try-wide re­al­i­ty, and com­pli­ance re­quire­ments con­tin­ue to evolve. Pric­ing was fi­nalised pri­or to these in­creas­es; there­fore, the band was in­evitably im­pact­ed,” she said.

McIn­tosh echoed this, not­ing that while the price in­crease af­fect­ed costs, the band was un­will­ing to re­duce ser­vices or re­move items al­ready promised to mas­quer­aders, and ab­sorbed the ad­di­tion­al ex­pense to main­tain the ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Re­gard­ing the in­crease in al­co­hol prices, our band launched in Ju­ly, well be­fore the na­tion­al bud­get was pre­sent­ed,” he said.

Prov­i­dence con­firmed the same ap­proach for Ex­ou­sia Mas, not­ing that the band can­not pass on these ad­di­tion­al costs to mas­quer­aders, mean­ing the band must ab­sorb the im­pact.