SOYI­NI GREY

soyi­ni.grey@guardian.co.t

While it may be too ear­ly in the sea­son to say if this is the “Moth­er of All Car­ni­vals” from an eco­nom­ic per­spec­tive, T&T is be­ing ad­vised to un­der­stand the pow­er of its re­gion­al Car­ni­vals if it in­tends to re­main the “Great­est Show on Earth!”

In the crowd­ed land­scape of Caribbean cos­tume fes­ti­vals, while T&T may still re­main king or queen, it is con­stant­ly fend­ing off chal­lengers to the ti­tle: from the grow­ing and de­vel­op­ing re­gion­al Car­ni­vals to the rise of Car­ni­val-themed des­ti­na­tion ex­pe­ri­ences and cruis­es like Mele Des­ti­na­tions and the Uber So­ca cruis­es. All these, Dr Jo-anne Tull said, of­fer ex­pe­ri­ences that could draw the typ­i­cal vis­i­tor away if T&T has no clear vi­sion of what its Car­ni­val prod­uct is.

She would know.

Tull is the aca­d­e­m­ic co-or­di­na­tor of the UWI’s De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts (DC­FA) post­grad­u­ate diplo­ma in Arts Cul­tur­al and En­ter­prise Man­age­ment, and the BA in Car­ni­val Stud­ies.

Her ar­eas of spe­cial­i­sa­tion in­clude fes­ti­val eco­nom­ics, fes­ti­val sta­tis­tics, and the busi­ness of Car­ni­val.

Re­cent­ly she was lead co-or­di­na­tor of the Fes­ti­vals and Car­ni­vals Ac­cel­er­a­tor Pro­gramme for Car­ni­val Fes­ti­val and Car­ni­val Op­er­a­tors fund­ed through the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank’s (CDB) Cul­tur­al and Cre­ative In­dus­tries In­dus­tri­al Fund (CIF) and DC­FA’s pi­lot train­ing work­shop on da­ta cap­ture and the mea­sure­ment of fes­ti­val’s tourism ini­tia­tives.

Da­ta she says mat­ters, but sad­ly we do not have enough of it.

An­a­lysts have to be cre­ative with the avail­able da­ta, and even then Tull said it on­ly of­fers a snap­shot. How­ev­er, when da­ta col­lec­tion im­proves it would be eas­i­er to iden­ti­fy the as­pects of the Car­ni­val that are the most at­trac­tive to its var­i­ous par­tic­i­pants.

For in­stance, there is the be­lief that the younger Car­ni­val vis­i­tor is not drawn to the her­itage as­pects of the fes­ti­val, but Tull ad­vised that this is a mis­con­cep­tion.

“You can­not lose sight of the fact that the re­ten­tion, the ap­pre­ci­a­tion and the show­cas­ing of the tra­di­tion­al as­pects of the Car­ni­val can­not be lost,” she said.

Tull fur­ther ex­plained, “if those things were to be lost the au­then­tic el­e­ment, the in­dige­nous na­ture of the Car­ni­val would be gone and that very fes­ti­val pa­tron and fes­ti­val vis­i­tor that comes every year anx­ious­ly for those oth­er el­e­ments, the con­tem­po­rary or the more com­mer­cialised el­e­ments they would stop com­ing.” Why? “Be­cause they would say this (Car­ni­val) is not re­al again. This is not the re­al thing” she an­swered.

There­fore, T&T is ad­vised to fig­ure out the right bal­ance be­tween the her­itage and the con­tem­po­rary as­pects of the fes­ti­val.

The da­ta that ex­ists has iden­ti­fied the pro­file of the typ­i­cal Car­ni­val at­tendee.

The old­er vis­i­tor is like­ly to be a for­eign-based na­tion­al who is drawn to their fa­mil­ial ex­pe­ri­ences on the is­land. They are re­turn­ing home and tend to be stay­ing with rel­a­tives. They are fa­mil­iar with the fes­ti­val and know what events they will at­tend. These tend to in­clude the tra­di­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions and vis­its to the pa­n­yards. They may be less at­tract­ed to the big fetes but may at­tend more fringe par­ties and events.

Con­verse­ly, the younger Car­ni­val vis­i­tor may range in age from 22-38 years old and while they may have Caribbean roots they are more like­ly to stay in an air-BnB, a guest­house or a ho­tel. They are more tran­sient than the old­er trav­eller, mean­ing they are at­tract­ed to what is new, glam­orous and cost-ef­fec­tive. For in­stance To­ba­go’s de­but Car­ni­val in Oc­to­ber. While it may be pos­si­ble to turn them in­to re­peat vis­i­tors, in gen­er­al, they are fick­le and are on the hunt for the “new big thing” in mas.

While the al­lure of the pret­ty cos­tume is strong, it is not enough to cre­ate a sus­tain­able fes­ti­val. As such Tull be­lieves that all Car­ni­vals need to have a unique sell­ing propo­si­tion or USP. This USP is what Ja­maica found by in­cor­po­rat­ing dance­hall in­to their road ex­pe­ri­ence. It is al­so what has led to the emer­gence of the des­ti­na­tion car­ni­val-type events that have be­come suc­cess­ful.

“That is why the Uber So­cas have come and are pop­u­lar. Go­ing to Dubai for the week­end. The Ibiza week­end,” she said.

“These are off­shoots of Car­ni­val that are hap­pen­ing all over the world that have be­come very silent­ly com­peti­tors to the main Car­ni­val,” Tull said.

For in­stance, Machel Mon­tano and Tribe Car­ni­val’s Mele Des­ti­na­tions which launched in 2022 in Mex­i­co, re­turns in 2023 af­ter a suc­cess­ful launch.

What does not seem to be a Car­ni­val’s USP are the cos­tumes. While im­por­tant, ul­ti­mate­ly it may be that the biki­ni and beads daz­zle more bright­ly with­in a fes­ti­val that has some­thing else to de­fine it.

“It re­al­ly doesn’t lie nec­es­sar­i­ly in how pret­ty the mas is on the road,” Tull said.

In fact, she be­lieves T&T’s USP or mag­ic bul­let is lodged with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. This is not to say that the cos­tumes and their de­sign­ers are not a ma­jor draw, but even for the mas­quer­aders for whom these are their pri­ma­ry at­trac­tions, even they want a Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence that is an­chored with a unique fes­ti­val ex­pe­ri­ence, and Tull be­lieves the re­gion­al Car­ni­vals pro­vide that op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“Trinidad has a very in­ter­est­ing, very strong flavoured com­mu­ni­ty spir­it that is tied to the way in which they so­cialise, which is lim­ing,” she said. It is these el­e­ments that grab the Car­ni­val tourist be­cause they are unique ex­pe­ri­ences that can not be du­pli­cat­ed, there­fore there is no oth­er op­tion for the Car­ni­val vis­i­tor who wants to ex­pe­ri­ence kalin­da (stick­fight­ing) in Moru­ga or the Paramin Blue Dev­ils.

There­in lies the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“Could you imag­ine spend­ing the whole week, apart from what­ev­er fete­ing you may be do­ing, one night you go in Paramin. One night you go Cara­pichaima. Next night you go down South for the fan­cy In­di­an,” she said.

This she said spreads the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ences far and wide broad­en­ing the Car­ni­val econ­o­my across the coun­try and be­cause those ex­pe­ri­ences can on­ly be had here the vis­i­tor is in­duced to re­turn mul­ti­ple times. For them the draw is that “you are in the com­mu­ni­ties where this thing is born.” And for the com­mu­ni­ties they are “mak­ing mon­ey...cause you can’t tell a Trinida­di­an how to throw a fete.”

This point aligns with a state­ment John Arnold made while dis­cussing To­ba­go’s abil­i­ty to host two Car­ni­vals and the role of To­ba­go with­in the na­tion­al fes­ti­val in Feb­ru­ary.

The chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion point­ed out that the gen­er­al pub­lic be­lieves Car­ni­val on­ly takes place in Port-of-Spain which is in­ac­cu­rate.

“We have sev­er­al re­gion­al Car­ni­vals and To­ba­go fits in­to that snug­ly,” he said.

“When you tell peo­ple Ari­ma has a Car­ni­val. San­gre Grande has Car­ni­val you know. Tu­na­puna, South has Car­ni­val. Peo­ple don’t know. All these places have a Car­ni­val and it’s a good Car­ni­val,” Arnold said.

He al­so ar­gued for the ap­peal of these re­gion­al Car­ni­vals. De­scrib­ing the one in To­ba­go as “ac­ces­si­ble” and “laid­back” which could ap­peal to some vis­i­tors.

Which is the point Tull is mak­ing.

She be­lieves T&T can of­fer the Port-of-Spain fes­ti­val and a suite of Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties across both is­lands as a draw for tourists.