The budget for Tobago’s Carnival is $9 million.
Chief Executive Officer of the Tobago Festivals Commission Ltd (TFCL), John Arnold, made this clear yesterday, as he said not only is Tobago Carnival on, its budget is not the $1.3 million being reported in other media houses.
Addressing Tobago’s effort for the forthcoming “Mother of all Carnivals,” Arnold said, “There was some erroneous messages in the media this morning (Wednesday). It was erroneous from the perspective of: it is $1.3 million on the estimate for the Tobago mas bands, but not for the entire Carnival.”
He provided a rough breakdown of the planned events for Tobago’s Carnival products.
“So, each of the stakeholders was given a figure to work with. We also explained that we’re doing the medium band finals in Tobago. We’re also doing the THA Panchyat, and we’re also doing the inter-departmental personality Carnival celebration. So all of those are under an overall budget somewhere in the region of $9 million,” Arnold said.
He said the commission will be meeting with stakeholders today to finalise plans for “The Mother of All Carnivals.”
Asked about the willingness or even the availability of Tobago’s stakeholders to take part in the national Carnival four months after the Tobago held its very first unique Carnival last October, Arnold assured that all had signalled their intention to be involved.
“At this time, we are working with the special interest groups,” he said.
“We’ve had several meetings with them and there will be a Carnival as per normal and we’ve also spoken to NCC about working with this ‘Mother of all Carnivals’ concept. So collaboratively, we’re hoping to have a national Carnival that features in Trinidad and features in Tobago.”
On the question of Tobago’s readiness, Arnold said all of the stakeholders said they had already started to work on their Carnival presentations.
“The mas fraternity has indicated that, Miss Jemma Bedlow (president of the Tobago Mas Bands Association) has indicated that with her membership. Same thing we had for pan and the same thing we had from the calypso fraternity,” Arnold said.
“One of the good things about the TFCL, which is Festivals Commission, is that we really work closely with all three stakeholders. The three main stakeholders we are able to have a good relationship for them over the last few years and that has only gotten better and better.”