By Nigel Teles­ford

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) CEO Kei­ba Ja­cob Mot­t­ley says last Fri­day’s of­fi­cial launch of Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val 2026, dubbed “Car­ni­val in the City,” was a re­sound­ing suc­cess. She de­scribed the day-long event, staged in the heart of Port-of-Spain, as one that “sur­passed all ex­pec­ta­tions.”

Speak­ing af­ter the launch, Ja­cob Mot­t­ley ex­pressed great en­thu­si­asm and sat­is­fac­tion with the turnout, pub­lic en­gage­ment, and over­all re­sponse to the ini­tia­tive.

“Car­ni­val in the City sur­passed our great­est ex­pec­ta­tions. In bring­ing Car­ni­val to the City of Port-of-Spain, we cre­at­ed a full day of ac­tiv­i­ties for the pub­lic—peo­ple of all ages and back­grounds—and helped pro­vide a boost to small busi­ness own­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty, which is what Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val is all about,” she said.

“Work­ing along­side our stake­hold­ers in the mas, steel­pan, ca­lyp­so, and so­ca com­mu­ni­ties, and our long­stand­ing al­lies at the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, we brought an en­joy­able ex­pe­ri­ence to the peo­ple and helped dri­ve mo­men­tum with just 100 days un­til Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val.”

Ja­cob Mot­t­ley al­so thanked the ded­i­cat­ed staff at the NCC and en­cour­aged sup­pli­ers and stake­hold­ers to con­tin­ue col­lab­o­rat­ing to­ward a suc­cess­ful 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son.

“It was an all-hands-on-deck af­fair, with our en­tire NCC team lead­ing by ex­am­ple and work­ing tire­less­ly to en­sure a suc­cess­ful ven­ture. The board and I are ex­treme­ly grate­ful for the sup­port pro­vid­ed by every de­part­ment. In thank­ing them, we are con­fi­dent that we will achieve our goals for 2026 and con­tin­ue to build the right foun­da­tion as we play our role in Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val’s sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment,” she said.

“On the road to Car­ni­val 2026, we are ea­ger to ex­plore new part­ner­ships as we mar­ket the prod­uct to wider au­di­ences. Even as we host and sup­port flag­ship events of the sea­son, peo­ple can ex­pect in­no­v­a­tive changes and some ex­cit­ing ad­di­tions.”

Fol­low­ing the city launch, pop­u­lar event man­age­ment and pro­mo­tions com­pa­ny Kairi Peo­ple al­so un­veiled a new ven­ture at the cor­ner of Tra­garete Road and White Street in Wood­brook. Apt­ly named “Beats,” the new en­ter­tain­ment hub com­bines food, drinks, and live en­ter­tain­ment in one con­ve­nient and high­ly vis­i­ble lo­ca­tion. It will al­so serve as a tick­et out­let for all Kairi Peo­ple events.

Con­tin­u­ing the count­down to Car­ni­val 2026, Kairi Peo­ple host­ed their high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed event “Run­away” at the South­ern Ranch in Debe. The show fea­tured an ex­ten­sive line­up of per­form­ers and is ex­pect­ed to at­tract a large crowd.

The top-rat­ed A Team Band per­formed at Run­away for the first time, even as their all-new front­line cast is set to be of­fi­cial­ly launched tonight at The Bun­ga­low Restau­rant and Lounge in St Clair.

So­ca stars Voice and Patrice Roberts will al­so head­line Run­away, along­side D All Starz Band fea­tur­ing Col­lege Boy Jesse, Viking Ding Dong, Mi­cal Te­ja, Free­town Col­lec­tive, Bla­ka Dan, Sack­ie, Ani­ka Berry, Sekon Sta, and Yung Bred­da.

The Car­ni­val count­down con­tin­ues with ex­cite­ment build­ing both in­side and out­side the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s “must-win” foot­ball match against Ja­maica. The fes­tive en­er­gy sur­round­ing the game is ex­pect­ed to mir­ror the elec­tric spir­it of the Car­ni­val sea­son.

TTFA Mar­ket­ing Con­sul­tant Michael Black­man not­ed:

“The lev­el of pas­sion and pa­tri­o­tism these match­es evoke is leg­endary and def­i­nite­ly close to Car­ni­val en­er­gy. It’s great that the count­down to the Great­est Show on Earth has be­gun so soon af­ter. I hope our War­riors take that same en­er­gy on­to the field and de­liv­er a re­sound­ing vic­to­ry to gal­vanise even more sup­port and rev­el­ry as we head to­ward Christ­mas and Car­ni­val 2026.”