Thou­sands of cit­i­zens stood in awe dur­ing a spec­tac­u­lar 22-minute fire­works dis­play at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah over the cap­i­tal city of Port-of-Spain last night and peo­ple across the globe were able to wit­ness the event live as it was streamed by sis­ter tele­vi­sion sta­tion CNC3.

For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, the ANSA McAL Group of Com­pa­nies spon­sored the event, ti­tled “Il­lu­mi­nate,” as a gift to the na­tion, pow­ered by Fire One Fire­works, which com­mem­o­rat­ed its 56th an­niver­sary of in­de­pen­dence yes­ter­day.

The fire­works dis­play, which some com­men­ta­tors said was un­matched, was ac­com­pa­nied by a mix­ture of lo­cal ca­lyp­so clas­sics, from David Rud­der, MX Prime, Broth­er Mar­vin, Ben­jai, Nailah Black­man, Bun­ji Gar­lin, Machel Mon­tano, steel­pan and in­stru­men­tal mu­sic.

Peo­ple watch­ing the live stream com­mend­ed the or­gan­is­ers of the event and com­pared it to icon­ic glob­al events.

Spec­ta­tors were treat­ed at both Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do Hill and were al­so able to tune in­to the event on Guardian Me­dia ra­dio sta­tions.

ANSA McAL, through its flag­ship com­pa­ny Carib Brew­ery Ltd and sup­port­ed by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, Mu­sic TT, Live Mu­sic Dis­trict, NL­CB and Guardian Me­dia, said the event was an­oth­er gift to the na­tion.

Ear­li­er, a free three-hour con­cert, ti­tled Il­lu­mi­na­tion the In­de­pen­dence Con­cert, was host­ed at the south­ern foy­er of the Grand Stand at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

In San Fer­nan­do, scores of peo­ple gath­ered along the main ar­ter­ies of San Fer­nan­do and on the out­skirts of the city to watch the mag­nif­i­cent dis­play of In­de­pen­dence Day fire­works.

The turn-out was less than ob­served in pre­vi­ous years, po­lice said.

The dis­play start­ed short­ly af­ter 8 pm. Crowds be­gan con­verg­ing along Cof­fee Street, Cir­cu­lar Road, High Street and Cipero Street about 30 min­utes be­fore the dis­play.

Those who ven­tured away from the city’s traf­fic gath­ered with their chil­dren along the San Fer­nan­do By­pass and on top of the Cross Cross­ing In­ter­change. At Gulf View and Co­conut Dri­ve, fam­i­lies held back­yard bar­be­ques in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the cel­e­bra­tion.

The dis­play end­ed at 8.27 pm.