KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris is promis­ing a big­ger, bold­er, and more spec­tac­u­lar San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val 2025, com­plete with the re­vival of the tra­di­tion­al mas band route and a re­vamped mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy.

With the theme Im­pact, Re­de­fine, the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion’s Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee launched the south­ern city’s Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions at the San Fer­nan­do Yacht Club on Fri­day evening. Ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing, Par­ris de­clared that the SFCC is de­ter­mined to shake things up for the peo­ple.

Re­flect­ing on Car­ni­val 2024, he de­scribed it as a whirl­wind of events, un­fold­ing amidst the swear­ing-in of coun­cil­lors in Au­gust 2023, swift­ly fol­lowed by plan­ning for City Month cel­e­bra­tions, Christ­mas, and then Car­ni­val in Feb­ru­ary 2024. How­ev­er, he as­sured that with a dy­nam­ic blend of youth­ful en­er­gy and sea­soned ex­pe­ri­ence, they had craft­ed fresh and in­no­v­a­tive ideas to tru­ly im­pact and re­de­fine this year’s fes­ti­val.

“We have faced our chal­lenges in the past, and I want you to un­der­stand just how much work it takes to put a Car­ni­val to­geth­er. Peo­ple think it is easy, but it is far from it—es­pe­cial­ly when we are still clas­si­fied as a re­gion­al body in Car­ni­val terms. We are the sec­ond city, and as such, we re­ly heav­i­ly on spon­sor­ship,” Par­ris ex­plained.

De­spite the odds, he re­vealed that the SFCC’s mar­ket­ing and pub­lic re­la­tions team had suc­cess­ful­ly se­cured spon­sors, mak­ing the launch event it­self a tes­ta­ment to their ef­forts. He promised a Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence like no oth­er, em­pha­sis­ing that suc­cess re­quired uni­ty. He re­mind­ed every­one that Car­ni­val was not about him or the com­mit­tee, but about the peo­ple and those who ben­e­fit from the fes­tiv­i­ties.

As for the mas band route, Par­ris not­ed that last year’s de­vi­a­tion from tra­di­tion had been at the re­quest of band­lead­ers, a de­ci­sion he had ho­n­oured. How­ev­er, he hu­mor­ous­ly point­ed out that they had “set him up” and pinned the blame on him for the en­su­ing is­sues. This year, he made it clear—there would be no re­peats of that sit­u­a­tion.

“This year, our in­no­v­a­tive mar­ket­ing team posed ques­tions on so­cial me­dia, and they pre­sent­ed their find­ings to me. The ex­per­i­ment with the wharf route may not have worked for now, but I am cer­tain it will be the route of the fu­ture. For this year, how­ev­er, we are re­turn­ing to Cipero Street,” Par­ris con­firmed.