The gala open­ing of the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val took place on Ju­ly 16 at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex. Chair­man of the fes­ti­val, Wen­dell Berkley, de­scribed it as, "com­ing full cir­cle," since Shaw Park was where the Fes­ti­val first be­gan and has now re­turned to lo­ca­tion with the new­ly con­struct­ed com­plex.

Blink-bmo­bile has been a key con­trib­u­tor to the stag­ing of the fes­ti­val for over 15 years. "It's al­ways a plea­sure to be part of the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val," said On­i­ca Black­man, en­ter­prise mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er, TSTT, To­ba­go Op­er­a­tions in a re­lease.

"Year af­ter year we wit­ness the growth of the fes­ti­val as vis­i­tors come from all over the world to ex­pe­ri­ence the re-en­act­ment of his­to­ry and to learn more about the rich cul­ture of To­ba­go," said Black­man. Pa­trons had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­ple­ment their Open­ing Night ex­pe­ri­ence with a chance at the blink-bmo­bile Wheel of For­tune Game, which saw renowned ca­lyp­son­ian Ca­lyp­so Rose spin­ning the wheel.

Among the hun­dreds to at­tend the event were Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Orville Lon­don, THA of­fi­cials and act­ing Min­is­ter of To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters.

In her ad­dress, Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, sec­re­tary of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture, ac­knowl­edged that putting the fes­ti­val to­geth­er is no easy feat but strong­ly recog­nised the for­ti­tude, vi­sion and strong lead­er­ship of the team that was able to trans­form the space. As he of­fi­cial­ly de­clared the fes­ti­val open, Lon­don paid trib­ute to those who would have con­tributed the Her­itage Fes­ti­val over the years, such as Cyn­thia Al­fred, Hen­ry James, Rawle "Axe­back" Ti­tus and Ed­ward Her­nan­dez.

Us­ing the theme, Com­mu­ni­ty Trea­sures–Recog­ni­tion, the open­ing night pro­duc­tion was the third and fi­nal part of the tril­o­gy, which spanned 2013 to 2015. Artis­tic di­rec­tor of the 2015 pro­duc­tion and di­rec­tor of Cul­ture, THA, Glen­da-Rose Layne, de­scribed the Open­ing Night pre­sen­ta­tion as "world class," as it mar­ried 21st-cen­tu­ry tech­nol­o­gy (LED screens, videog­ra­phy) with tra­di­tion­al art forms of song, dance and dra­ma. A very sat­is­fied Layne, said she saw where the hard work of the cast and crew came to fruition.

The pre­sen­ta­tion took pa­trons on a his­tor­i­cal jour­ney of To­ba­go, high­light­ing promi­nent fea­tures and pe­ri­ods of the past, such as Fort King George and the Light House, the Silk Cot­ton Tree folk­tale, the Buc­coo Reef and Ny­lon Pool, the Mys­tery Tomb­stone, the Arnos Vale Wa­ter Wheel, Hur­ri­cane Flo­ra and the Rain For­est.

Layne said, "I want­ed pa­trons to leave with the un­der­stand­ing that we should pre­serve and cher­ish what we have. And while we may have dif­fer­ences, we must come to an agree­ment, in or­der to move To­ba­go for­ward."