Not even the rain could put a damper on the spec­tac­u­lar kid­dies mas held at down­town Port-of-Spain.

To pop­u­lar tunes like and Famalay and Sa­van­nah Grass scores young mas­quer­ades frol­icked in a sea of vi­brant colour and splen­dour, in­deed por­tray­ing the start of the Great­est Show on Earth.

But it was Famalay which took the lead, fu­elling the en­er­gy of the young mas­quer­aders even fur­ther.

From teens to tiny tots, they jumped, danced, pranced, waved as they de­pict­ed a wide ar­ray of themes rang­ing from na­ture to space ob­jects to lol­lipops and even tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters.

Trib­ute was al­so paid to leg­ends like The Mighty Shad­ow and Ken 'Pro­fes­sor' Philmore which seem­ing­ly got the nod of some of the on­look­ers in­clud­ing tourists.

De­spite the slow start due to the in­clement weath­er, the bands flowed smooth­ly through the re­spec­tive routes, be­gin­ning at South Quay.

Judges said there was a size­able turnout of spec­ta­tors from all parts of the coun­try.

"The cre­ativ­i­ty of the bands im­proved every year. It's amaz­ing how all the cos­tumes come to life when the chil­dren jump up. It's im­por­tant we en­cour­age the younger gen­er­a­tion to be part of all of this to keep Car­ni­val alive," one judge said.

Many spec­ta­tors lined In­de­pen­dence Square to view the pass­ing bands.

Al­though the streets were jam-packed with spec­ta­tors and mas­quer­aders, the crowd main­tained the peace un­der the watch­ful eye of po­lice of­fi­cers who were out in full force to en­sure law and or­der.

Rain fails to stop young South mas­quer­aders

Mean­while, in South, bay rum, vapour rub, and Shandi­lay bush may be in de­mand to­day for hun­dreds of chil­dren who took part in yes­ter­day's Ju­nior Pa­rade of the Bands in San Fer­nan­do un­der heavy rains.

If the wa­ter lord Neil "Iw­er" George con­sid­ered yes­ter­day's down­pour as a wa­ter bless­ing, it was sure­ly felt by the chil­dren who agreed that rain on­ly stops crick­et and frol­icked through the sog­gy out­field and wet stage at Skin­ner Park.

At the 10 am start time, most of the 26 bands had gath­ered at Cir­cu­lar Road but had to take cov­er from the per­sis­tent driz­zle that last­ed more than an hour. The de­lay saw the first band, House of Jacqui with their por­tray­al of Kaiso Kaiso, reach­ing the stage at 12.55 pm.

The clouds were dark grey, but the colours and the mag­ic of chil­dren mak­ing mer­ry lit the faces of par­ents and on­look­ers who stood in the mud in front of the stage.

There were daz­zling cos­tumes from The Na­tion's Peo­ple who pre­sent­ed their Guardians of the Ogala Na­tion; a dis­play of tra­di­tion­al In­di­an mas.

The band Heart and Soul's pre­sen­ta­tion of Birds of a Feath­er showed cre­ativ­i­ty in por­tray­ing the beau­ti­ful birds that nest in T&T, in­clud­ing a flock of Scar­let Ibis, the rare scar­let macaw, the white doves that rep­re­sent love, the pea­cock and pea­hen, and the all-girls sec­tion of pink flamin­goes. R&T Kids Crew's The Sky is the Lim­it brought their own weath­er to the stage, show­cas­ing the rain­bow, the sun, white clouds, light­ning, and rain.

But af­ter their per­for­mance at 2.30 pm, the rain re­turned. By the time Eck­el Vil­lage AC School and Friends showed off their pre­sen­ta­tion of Trib­ute to Kings and Queens of Car­ni­val, the rain was pour­ing and many of the mas­quer­aders were brought on­to the stage drenched, yet still hap­py to par­tic­i­pate.