KEVON FELMINE & RENU­KA SINGH

Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell yes­ter­day de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion to stage a Car­ni­val 2022 in Feb­ru­ary for vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple, say­ing a lim­it­ed cel­e­bra­tion sig­nals a cau­tious re-open­ing of the cre­ative and en­ter­tain­ment sec­tors.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mitchell said these sec­tors were hit the hard­est with the ar­rival of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. He said they con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the econ­o­my, so it was ex­treme­ly wel­com­ing that a lim­it­ed Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tion can be held safe­ly with­in the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions and TT Safe Zone re­quire­ments.

“I think that it gives per­sons an op­por­tu­ni­ty to air and prac­tice their craft. It al­so gives cit­i­zens an op­por­tu­ni­ty to, again, en­joy our cul­ture, be en­ter­tained and par­tic­i­pate in a lim­it­ed type of Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions,” Mitchell said.

He al­so be­lieves the host­ing of Car­ni­val will en­cour­age COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tions.

The min­istry said the events would have a lim­it of 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty with con­trolled en­try and ex­it points while pa­trons must sani­tise their hands on en­try. Events will be con­cert type shows and com­pe­ti­tions en­com­pass­ing so­ca, ca­lyp­so, ex­tem­po, chut­ney, steel­pan, Car­ni­val Kings and Queens and Car­ni­val the­atre. How­ev­er, the reg­u­la­tions do not al­low fetes, par­ties and sim­i­lar type events.

The min­istry said the na­ture of these ac­tiv­i­ties pos­es a risk of in­creas­ing the spread of COVID-19. While it con­sid­ered PCR test­ing for risk mit­i­ga­tion, the min­istry found it un­re­al­is­tic as the cost per test per pa­tron would be un­eco­nom­i­cal.

But there were mixed views to the cel­e­bra­tions, ti­tled a “Taste of Car­ni­val,” from stake­hold­ers yes­ter­day.

The Pro­mo­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA), in a re­lease, said it was clear the cel­e­bra­tions were an im­por­tant in­ter­ven­tion for the State pub­lic re­la­tions ma­chine. How­ev­er, it said the ac­tiv­i­ty has no im­pact on its in­dus­try.

“The head­line read­ing ‘Car­ni­val is On’ is mis­lead­ing, and it has caused tremen­dous con­fu­sion for stake­hold­ers. As a na­tion, we have missed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ac­ti­vate ‘Car­ni­val’ for 2022. The TTPA is not aligned with an agen­da that on­ly sup­ports State-fund­ed events, at State-owned venues a few short weeks be­fore the tra­di­tion­al Ash Wednes­day end of Car­ni­val date, with no sense of what hap­pens there­after,” the TTPA said.

Say­ing Car­ni­val 2022 is not on, the TTPA re­newed its call for Gov­ern­ment to re-open the event and en­ter­tain­ment sec­tors and state if Car­ni­val 2023 will be on so they can work on that prod­uct in­stead.

“We need a clear an­swer. We can­not con­tin­ue to live in this state: a per­pet­u­al win­ter of dis­con­tent. We are clear­ly ask­ing for the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to state if Car­ni­val 2023 is on. We need to start plan­ning now for a suc­cess­ful fes­ti­val sea­son next year and be­yond.”

How­ev­er, Mitchell said pro­mot­ers could book the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts, South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts, Queen’s Hall and Na­pari­ma Bowl at af­ford­able rates and any oth­er venues that can be a safe zone. He added that pro­mot­ers could ad­ver­tise their events as they deem fit and there is no need to ap­ply to the min­istry for ap­proval but they need to fol­low the reg­u­la­tions.

He said the min­istry recog­nis­es that the late de­ci­sion to host Car­ni­val 2022 may have caused some anx­i­ety among the Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers. How­ev­er, he said it was nec­es­sary to re­ceive ad­vice from the Min­istry of Health as T&T was still in the throes of a pan­dem­ic and has lag­ging is­sues of low vac­ci­na­tion rates and a high lev­el of hos­pi­tal ad­mis­sions among un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple.

“There­fore, it was nec­es­sary to re­ceive at the very last minute the pro­jec­tions and ad­vice from the Min­istry of Health to be able to com­fort­ably and con­fi­dent­ly make a de­ci­sion to host a safe Car­ni­val. It is a taste of Car­ni­val, where some Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties are able to be host­ed with­in the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions with­in the safe zone guide­lines, where per­sons will be seat­ed, be en­ter­tained, in a con­cert-type set­ting, and peo­ple are again able to en­joy our cul­ture,” Mitchell said.

Speak­ing to I95.5 FM yes­ter­day, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore wel­comed Car­ni­val 2022, say­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion plans to host two con­cert-type events like the Panora­ma fi­nals. Ram­sey-Moore be­lieves once peo­ple fol­low the pub­lic health guide­lines the events will be safe. She said the steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty looks for­ward to the events as for the past two years, Pan Trin­ba­go could not gen­er­ate any rev­enue to as­sist steel­bands with month­ly ex­pens­es.

Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans As­so­ci­a­tion (TU­CO) pres­i­dent Ains­ley King al­so sees Car­ni­val 2022 as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who have been dor­mant since the start of the pan­dem­ic. He said TU­CO in­tends to cap­i­talise on the op­por­tu­ni­ty and is con­fi­dent in the safe­ty mea­sures in place, as they were part of the dis­cus­sions. TU­CO al­ready has its venues to host events and doc­u­ment­ed mem­bers’ vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus, he said.

New ap­proach for

'23 should be fo­cus

Head of Tribe Dean Akin thinks the Car­ni­val ship of 2022 has sailed and is prep­ping for 2023, Cae­sar’s Army head Jules So­bion thinks Car­ni­val could sur­vive the chang­ing dy­nam­ic in­tro­duced by the pan­dem­ic.

Akin said the time to plan Car­ni­val 2022 is long gone.

“In my opin­ion, the ship has long sailed for Car­ni­val 2022, since prepa­ra­tions take sev­er­al months. We have been prepar­ing for Car­ni­val 2023 since last year and we are hop­ing that the pow­ers that be take a dif­fer­ent ap­proach mov­ing for­ward,” Akin said.

“In­stead of hav­ing us on red light wait­ing to give us the green light, we are ask­ing them to give us the green light for Car­ni­val 2023 from now and then change to red if and on­ly if the COVID sit­u­a­tion be­comes un­man­age­able.

“The world is learn­ing to live with the virus and economies are ful­ly open­ing one by one around the globe. Trinidad is about 50 per cent vac­ci­nat­ed and it is time to re­open the event and en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try with all COVID safe­ty pro­to­cols in place.”

He added, “The in­dus­try has a large eco-sys­tem and many per­sons re­ly on their jobs in this sec­tor to sur­vive. Two years with no in­come has been hard for many per­sons - from se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel to bar­tenders, cater­ers and the list goes on.”

He be­lieves once the pro­to­cols are in place and re­spect­ed, then Car­ni­val 2023 could hap­pen.

“A prop­er­ly man­aged safe zone can work well with all the COVID pro­to­cols in place. The event and en­ter­tain­ment sec­tors have been very re­spon­si­ble and pa­tient for the last two years, but it is time to re­open the sec­tor in a re­spon­si­ble and safe man­ner,” he said.

So­bion is one of the stake­hold­ers work­ing with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) and while pay­ing re­spect to the work it is do­ing, So­bion says new blood needs to be in­ject­ed to deal with the new nor­mal.

“From my per­son­al opin­ion, what they are try­ing to do is some form of high­light­ing and show­cas­ing of the cul­ture through medi­ums such as con­certs and shows and oth­er means of cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion,” he said.

“I think it ex­plic­it­ly for­bids any form of wine and jam or par­ty or ex­treme fes­tiv­i­ty but I still think it’s a vi­able op­tion. I just be­lieve that how it is set up at this point in time, it does not al­low for per­sons in the in­dus­try out­side of the State bod­ies to tru­ly ex­press their ways of show­cas­ing Car­ni­val.”

So­bion said the in­no­va­tion from the next gen­er­a­tion was al­so miss­ing in the plan­ning process.

“It seems as if every­thing is con­trolled by the NCC in terms of what is go­ing to be put for­ward. I don’t think that with all the con­sul­tan­cy that has tak­en place with the stake­hold­ers out­side of the NCC, I don’t think they’ve al­lowed us to play an in­te­gral part in the co­he­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what can tran­spire,” So­bion said.