Yvonne Ba­boolal

A pro­ject­ed $120 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed for Car­ni­val 2011 and Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters said it promis­es to be one of the biggest and best ever host­ed in the world."There will be many im­prove­ments to the Car­ni­vals be­fore...There will be a greater em­pha­sis on high-qual­i­ty events that would see prof­its at the mi­cro and macro eco­nom­ic lev­els," Pe­ters said at a press con­fer­ence to launch Car­ni­val 2011 at Femmes Du Chalet (Break­fast Shed) on the Wa­ter­front at Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

He promised that Car­ni­val 2011 would at­tract "mil­lions" to T&T shores and pro­vide jobs for thou­sands of peo­ple.A pul­sat­ing com­bi­na­tion of tas­sa from the St James Tas­sa Drum­mers and the Wood­brook Play­boys opened the con­fer­ence.Pe­ters danced with old time mas char­ac­ters to the mu­sic and then took over a drum from one of the tas­sa play­ers and played with the band.

From the press ta­ble placed on the wa­ter­front with the Gulf of Paria in the back­ground, he ad­dressed the gath­er­ing af­ter.Pe­ters said he was com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T's econ­o­my."T&T Car­ni­val is im­por­tant as an in­dus­try that ex­ists be­yond our shores," he said. "It's hap­pen­ing in the Caribbean and around the world...There is a glob­al mar­ket for prod­ucts that are home-grown."

He said Car­ni­val had max­i­mum fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty and as­sured that T&T's econ­o­my will ben­e­fit.The theme of Car­ni­val 2011, Back in "D" Sa­van­nah, is sig­nif­i­cant as the an­nu­al fes­ti­val re­turns to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah af­ter some three years, he said."The Sa­van­nah has been home to the Big Stage for most of the 20th cen­tu­ry and is his­tor­i­cal­ly rel­e­vant to the event," Pe­ters said.

"The re­in­state­ment of view­ing stands at the Sa­van­nah is im­por­tant, for they pro­vide a view­ing chan­nel for the world to see our Car­ni­val."

The min­is­ter said Car­ni­val is about peo­ple and must nev­er lose its in­tegri­ty."The Peo­ple's Band will be in Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Ma­yaro and To­ba­go," he said."The con­cept (of the band) is par­tic­u­lar­ly dear to me...I feel Car­ni­val must in­volve all cit­i­zens.

"We must not on­ly seek to be­come en­tre­pre­neurs. There must be a bal­ance be­tween com­mer­cial growth and main­tain­ing the true essence of what made the fes­ti­val it is to­day." He said he was in­ter­est­ed in restor­ing old time mas and want­ed to see tra­di­tion­al char­ac­ters, like min­strels, mid­night rob­bers and dame lor­raines back on the streets for Car­ni­val 2011."This must nev­er be lost," Pe­ters said.Car­ni­val 2011 will be of­fi­cial­ly launched at the Sa­van­nah on Sun­day.