Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

stephon­ni­cholas@hot­mail.com

Four­teen years af­ter a group of friends col­lab­o­rat­ed to put on a fun J’Ou­vert ex­pe­ri­ence in To­ba­go, a mil­lion-dol­lar busi­ness has been formed, em­ploy­ing hun­dreds of peo­ple.

What start­ed as mud, oil and rev­el­ry in the streets of Crown Point has turned in­to a brand with the po­ten­tial to make its mark in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Found­ed by Tele Cruz and Keri Beri, Fog An­gels has soared and tak­en the spot­light, much like many of its pret­ty mas cos­tumes dur­ing Car­ni­val.

The pop­u­lar mas band launched its 2026 pre­sen­ta­tion for the fifth an­nu­al To­ba­go Car­ni­val on June 30 with the theme Fan­ta­sy Is­land.

It al­so an­nounced a fan com­pe­ti­tion, with a free cos­tume for any­one who can guess the names of the sec­tions. To­ba­go Car­ni­val gets un­der­way from Oc­to­ber 30 to No­vem­ber 1.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view at their Crown Point of­fice on Thurs­day, co-band­leader Beri was hes­i­tant to di­vulge de­tails about the cos­tumes, but as­sured that the op­tions are breath­tak­ing. Beri said that while some el­e­ments are out­sourced in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, the band strikes a bal­ance with lo­cal in­put as well.

She told Guardian Me­dia, “Our beau­ti­ful To­ba­go is our fan­ta­sy is­land and when we bring our beau­ti­ful mas­quer­aders here, we will turn their fan­ta­sy in­to re­al­i­ty.”

While at­tribut­ing the band’s growth to strate­gic and metic­u­lous plan­ning, Beri said its first for­ay in­to the mas in­dus­try was in­stant­ly em­braced by the pub­lic.

“We ac­tu­al­ly grew re­al­ly quick­ly. The first year that we came out on the road, from the very next year it was just pace.”

Fog An­gels quick­ly rev­o­lu­tionised the J’Ou­vert ex­pe­ri­ence, tak­ing rev­ellers from the tra­di­tion­al Scar­bor­ough and Rox­bor­ough routes in­to Crown Point.

In 2020, the Fog An­gels band left the streets of Crown Point swollen with more than 2,000 band mem­bers danc­ing and en­joy­ing the fes­tiv­i­ties.

Six years lat­er, that fig­ure seems in­signif­i­cant as the band is ex­pect­ing more than dou­ble that amount for this year’s J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions.

Beri cred­it­ed like-mind­ed in­di­vid­u­als for help­ing build the brand, but not­ed that co-founder Tele Cruz in­vest­ed his own re­sources in­to help­ing make the ideas a re­al­i­ty.

Cruz owns a num­ber of pop­u­lar bars across To­ba­go and Beri said his in­tense fo­cus and pen­chant for suc­cess show in each cos­tume.

“He is the one dri­ving this train all the way down to Scar­bor­ough,” she said.

“He is very pas­sion­ate about the band. He will set­tle for noth­ing less than ex­cel­lence for the band and I guess that is a very great mind­set be­cause it al­lows mas­quer­aders to feel loved and ap­pre­ci­at­ed. Every­thing we do, we think about mas­quer­aders first and fore­most and cre­at­ing that ex­pe­ri­ence for them.”

Beri said the band had mere­ly “tip­toed” in­to pret­ty mas pri­or to the in­au­gur­al To­ba­go Car­ni­val in 2022. How­ev­er, it saw the tremen­dous op­por­tu­ni­ties it pre­sent­ed and was ready to seize the ini­tia­tive.

“It has the po­ten­tial to be one of the best car­ni­vals in the re­gion. We were more than ex­cit­ed.

“We saw where the mas in­dus­try could take To­ba­go and put To­ba­go on the map.”

She said the Fog An­gels team view the band as an am­bas­sador for the is­land and a gate­way to To­ba­go’s oth­er tourism at­trac­tions.

“We were light-years ahead with our ideas, our vi­sion, what we want to ac­com­plish, what we wan­na see for To­ba­go. We want to bring peo­ple to the is­land and let them know it is much more than J’Ou­vert mas, but the is­land is beau­ti­ful and there are oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties you can in­dulge in.”

Each year, the band has grown ex­po­nen­tial­ly, with Car­ni­val or­gan­is­ers forced to shift the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions to Scar­bor­ough as Crown Point’s streets could not con­tain the num­bers.

De­spite its lead­ing sta­tus, Beri hopes the adage of a ris­ing tide rais­ing all ships holds true for the ben­e­fit of the in­dus­try.

“Fog An­gels has made its name in the To­ba­go Car­ni­val space. I know at the be­gin­ning of To­ba­go Car­ni­val a lot of peo­ple thought Fog An­gels was To­ba­go Car­ni­val, but like any oth­er coun­try, we need com­pet­i­tive brands in the mar­ket in or­der for it to be a sus­tain­able car­ni­val, be­cause every­body can’t come in the same band.”

What has been the biggest chal­lenge since in­cor­po­rat­ing pret­ty mas in­to its pack­age?

“Our most com­plex is­sue is the last-minute mas­quer­aders. We have to do blind or­ders to fa­cil­i­tate them be­cause they come in all shapes, forms, fash­ions and sizes.”

She said the band tries to be as flex­i­ble as pos­si­ble so as not to refuse any­one.

Fog An­gels PRO Se­moy De­four said there was a lot of hard work that went in­to mak­ing the brand na­tion­al­ly known, giv­en the large num­bers of Tri­nis who par­tic­i­pate in the car­ni­val. She said col­lab­o­ra­tions with Scorch, Tribe, Oro Lux­u­ry Car­ni­val in Grena­da, Zu­vo in St Lu­cia and Gen X in Ja­maica have en­hanced the Fog An­gels brand.

De­four said, “We have po­ten­tial to be in­ter­na­tion­al, not just in To­ba­go. We have the ca­pac­i­ty to show­case To­ba­go on an in­ter­na­tion­al scale. We are de­ter­mined to grow our band in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.”

Beri be­lieves air con­nec­tiv­i­ty is the on­ly hin­drance pre­vent­ing the car­ni­val from achiev­ing its full po­ten­tial.

“Our main con­straints are the flights, the air­bridge and seabridge. With the new air­port open­ing, we hope it could be a plus. We could have a new air­port, but if we don’t have the flights, it still pos­es a prob­lem. Once we have that air­bridge locked and loaded, it’s off the charts for us.”