NCC chairman unfazed by boos over relocation of Carnival Village: We appreciate the feedback

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), Pe­ter Kan­hai, says he was not per­turbed af­ter be­ing booed by sec­tions of the crowd dur­ing the launch of the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage on Fri­day, stress­ing that dif­fer­ing views were ex­pect­ed from time to time. He said the com­mis­sion re­mains com­mit­ted to im­prov­ing the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Good evening... You would no­tice right off the bat that we are do­ing things dif­fer­ent­ly this year. For starters, we have moved the vil­lage to this space. From along the drag to a new home near the North Stand, which you will see is more con­ve­nient, more ac­ces­si­ble, more spa­cious than be­fore,” said Kan­hai while giv­ing wel­come re­marks at the launch of the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah to pa­trons on Fri­day. It was that com­ment that drew the ire of some who be­gan to boo loud­ly, with oth­ers even ges­tic­u­lat­ing for him to go.

The Fla­va Vil­lage, which was launched on Thurs­day evening to ac­com­mo­date food ven­dors, has tak­en over the space tra­di­tion­al­ly oc­cu­pied by the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage. The Car­ni­val Vil­lage has been placed in the area known as the Pad­dock. The move has drawn mixed re­ac­tions from pa­trons to both ven­tures.

Post­ing the video of the in­ci­dent on her Face­book page, Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “The NCC chair­man ex­pe­ri­ences the em­bar­rass­ment that hap­pens when you make de­ci­sions with­out knowl­edge or con­sul­ta­tion.”

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the NCC chair­man ac­knowl­edged the re­ac­tion to the changes and as­sured that pub­lic feed­back would be care­ful­ly con­sid­ered.

“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 al­so not­ed that the ex­pand­ed lay­out sup­ports an en­hanced pro­gramme of day­time ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing school tours and ed­u­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives aimed at ex­pos­ing young peo­ple to the his­tor­i­cal, artis­tic, and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val in a struc­tured and en­gag­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

“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 added. “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.”

But speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Kan­hai said the re­ac­tion at the launch did not de­ter him as he re­lied on his decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in Car­ni­val and the steel­pan move­ment.

“I know how we be­have when things, some­times, changes are to be made, al­beit that the changes are in­tend­ed for bet­ter­ment and so on. So, I’m aware of that,” he said. “I have been in the Car­ni­val busi­ness for many, many years. More so in the steel­pan busi­ness for many, many years. So, it did not faze me.”

Kan­hai al­so as­sured that Car­ni­val 2026 will be safe, point­ing to on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the NCC and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

“Most im­por­tant­ly, the col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the NCC and the se­cu­ri­ty forces, the TTPS in par­tic­u­lar, have been on­go­ing and will con­tin­ue to make sure that we pro­vide, as a coun­try, a safe space for Car­ni­val 2026,” he said.

He added that ear­ly in­di­ca­tors sug­gest­ed the sea­son is shap­ing up to be a suc­cess, with Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties al­ready well un­der­way.

Ac­cord­ing to Kan­hai, Car­ni­val was of­fi­cial­ly launched in De­cem­ber, with the sin­gle-pan panora­ma com­plet­ed be­fore Christ­mas.

Kan­hai said both Car­ni­val vil­lages are now open, not­ing that the Fla­va Vil­lage was filled to ca­pac­i­ty de­spite in­clement weath­er, while the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage is ex­pect­ed to host night­ly ac­tiv­i­ties.

He added that key in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing the main stage, judg­ing points, and fa­cil­i­ties along the pa­rade route, is large­ly com­plet­ed or near­ing com­ple­tion.

Mean­while, NCC chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Kei­ba Ja­cob Mot­t­ley al­so ad­dressed con­cerns about the re­lo­ca­tion of the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia out­side the North­ern Greens, where the vil­lage is now lo­cat­ed, Mot­t­ley ac­knowl­edged that some mem­bers of the pub­lic re­main un­de­cid­ed about the change.

She said, how­ev­er, that the new lo­ca­tion of­fers added ben­e­fits to both pa­trons and stake­hold­ers.

“When we ini­tial­ly had the idea of Fla­va food vil­lage, peo­ple were not in­ter­est­ed, and there was some re­sis­tance, and over the last two days, we’ve had peo­ple just hap­py and ex­cit­ed to be part of it. You have to give every­thing a chance; you have to give the John Cu­pid Vil­lage a chance,” Mot­t­ley said.

She stat­ed that the new venue of­fered and ex­pand­ed the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence for both pa­trons and stake­hold­ers.