Fla­va Vil­lage of­fi­cial­ly opened at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Thurs­day, in­tro­duc­ing a new cu­rat­ed culi­nary and cul­tur­al space aimed at ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for ven­dors while en­hanc­ing the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence.

The ini­tia­tive ti­tled, “Fla­va Vil­lage – A Car­ni­val Culi­nary Ex­pe­ri­ence”, is a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Among those at­tend­ing the open­ing were Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Dr Narindra Roop­nar­ine and NCC Chair­man Pe­ter Kan­hai, along with oth­er gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers, cre­atives and mem­bers of the pub­lic.

Fla­va Vil­lage fea­tures 50 booths, com­pris­ing 45 food and bev­er­age ven­dors and five ar­ti­san booths, op­er­at­ing along­side ex­ist­ing vend­ing at the Sa­van­nah. The space is in­tend­ed to pro­vide ven­dors with im­proved in­fra­struc­ture, greater vis­i­bil­i­ty, en­hanced safe­ty and a more con­sis­tent op­er­at­ing sched­ule through­out the Car­ni­val sea­son.

Speak­ing at the launch, Min­is­ter Ben­jamin said the ini­tia­tive was de­signed to en­sure ven­dors ben­e­fit fi­nan­cial­ly while show­cas­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­ture. She de­scribed Fla­va Vil­lage as a plat­form for small busi­ness­es and an op­por­tu­ni­ty for en­tre­pre­neurs.

Ear­ly feed­back from ven­dors has been pos­i­tive, with sev­er­al re­port­ing strong sales on open­ing night, in­clud­ing some in­di­cat­ing they sold out. Ven­dors al­so cit­ed or­gan­i­sa­tion and vis­i­bil­i­ty as key ben­e­fits of the space.

Fla­va Vil­lage op­er­ates dai­ly from 4:00 pm to 11:00 pm and of­fers free ad­mis­sion. In ad­di­tion to food and drink, it in­cludes arts and hand­i­craft dis­plays, live cook­ing, guest DJs, acoustic per­for­mances and ap­pear­ances by Car­ni­val en­ter­tain­ers.

Tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters, in­clud­ing the Mid­night Rob­ber and Blue Dev­ils, are fea­tured through­out the space.

The Min­istry al­so an­nounced the open­ing of the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage on Fri­day evening at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.