BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

On the eve of Car­ni­val Mon­day, al­so Valen­tine’s Day, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), vir­tu­al­ly launched yes­ter­day the web­site: www.tnt­car­ni­val­world.com—a vir­tu­al in­ter­ac­tive plat­form of all things T&T Car­ni­val.

Of the his­toric dig­i­tal ven­ture, in de­liv­er­ing his ad­dress, NCC chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters said the web­site was NCC’s “gift of love” to T&T and the world.

“We love Car­ni­val so much that we are each com­mit­ted to not sit idly by as a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty await­ed. That op­por­tu­ni­ty, ladies and gen­tle­man is tnt­car­ni­val­world.com. It’s our gift to the na­tion and to the world. It is our gift of love,” Pe­ters said.

Giv­ing an il­lus­tra­tion of what the streets of T&T would nor­mal­ly look like dur­ing the two-day Car­ni­val Band Pa­rade and the cul­tur­al events that would ush­er in the great­est show on earth, Pe­ters said that cul­tur­al feast of ex­pres­sion that made T&T the en­vy of the world was now in a time of the past, but al­so in a time of hope for the im­me­di­ate fu­ture.

“Sad­ly we deal with that time now, but just like a time of the past and a time to come. The time of now has to be about love. Be­cause it is love that has brought us here to­day,” Pe­ters not­ed.

A mul­ti­me­dia demon­stra­tion of what the web­site looked like and what it en­com­passed was done by tech­nol­o­gist Akhen­aton La Bor­de, who walked those in at­ten­dance through its dig­i­tal ex­pe­ri­ence pre­sent­ed to its users in vir­tu­al and stan­dard forms.

On the web­site, tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters—a Fan­cy Sailor and Pier­rot Grenade, greet users and guides them through its ex­pe­ri­en­tial of­fer­ings—The Car­ni­val Mu­se­um, Events, and At­trac­tions. It was ex­plained; the Events realm was cre­at­ed for live per­for­mances in­clu­sive of a live stream for Di­manche Gras.

Users of the web­site will al­so have the chance to learn all about T&T’s Car­ni­val his­to­ry from the pre to post-eman­ci­pa­tion pe­ri­od. Pi­o­neer­ing cul­tur­ists in the form of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, pan­nists, and mas maskers would al­so be among the his­tor­i­cal jour­ney found on the web­site.

All of what the web­site would en­tail was not re­vealed yes­ter­day as La Bor­de said the con­tent was quite a lot.

How­ev­er, he said the web­site will prac­tice up­dat­ing its vir­tu­al ma­te­r­i­al every two to three days. It was al­so re­vealed a pri­vate shar­ing of the full web­site would be host­ed for the me­dia.

Pe­ters, who con­grat­u­lat­ed the 2021 In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch win­ner, Dar­ryl “Farmer Nap­py” Hen­ry, and hailed both the In­ter­na­tion­al Chut­ney So­ca and Ex­tem­po com­pe­ti­tions, thanked the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts and all Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers for their sig­na­ture ef­forts for mak­ing Car­ni­val a suc­cess even dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“We have man­aged to work to­geth­er, aligned our ef­forts and re­sources to give the peo­ple of this na­tion and around the world an­oth­er way to show their love,” said Pe­ters.

List­ing some of the ven­ture’s spon­sors, he said the ef­fort was not one that could have been en­dured by any one or­gan­i­sa­tion or group in par­tic­u­lar, but one suc­cess­ful on­ly through col­lab­o­ra­tive means.

Pe­ters said when Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that Car­ni­val 2021 would be can­celed, even though it was a bit­ter pill for many to swal­low, it was and will al­ways be the right de­ci­sion and his­to­ry would tes­ti­fy to that.

Speak­ing on the his­tor­i­cal vir­tu­al en­deav­our, he said NCC could not in good con­science present some­thing to the peo­ple that would con­tra­vene the col­lec­tive ef­fort to keep the na­tion’s peo­ple safe in a dan­ger­ous time, as this would have been sheer ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Tnt­car­ni­val­world.com is part of our col­lec­tive step to­day, to se­cure a fu­ture for Car­ni­val that we all want to see. It forms part of the fu­ture that we can all share safe­ly, health­ily, and re­spon­si­bly,” Pe­ters said..

He said while the coun­try missed the tra­di­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment of Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, its ‘Trin­ba­go’ spir­it and rhythm in the hearts of the na­tion’s peo­ple could not be di­min­ished nor ex­tin­guished by any pan­dem­ic.

Pe­ter’s dis­closed the dig­i­tal plat­form’s archives and re­flec­tions were not one-off events to en­ter­tain and dull the pain of miss­ing Car­ni­val 2021. Rather they form part of the fu­ture; NCC was proud and priv­i­leged to lead.

“To­geth­er with our spon­sors, sup­port­ers, and ad­vo­cates, this 2021, we are giv­ing the peo­ple some­thing they can look at as they look back and as they look ahead, “he said.

Pe­ters said NCC was al­so in the plan­ning stage for Car­ni­val 2022.

“I can as­sure you that from NCC’s stand­point, we are go­ing to have one of the best car­ni­vals that you have ever seen in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He said in 2020, the NCC spoke of in­creas­ing the vis­i­tor-ship to the is­land dur­ing Car­ni­val by ten per cent but in 2022, should all go well plac­ing a han­dle on the pan­dem­ic, it has all the in­ten­tions of in­creas­ing that vis­i­tor-ship by 20 per cent.