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Tuesday, May 20, 2025

NCC’s ‘Carnival World’ goes live on February 12th

by

NEWS DESK
1574 days ago
20210126

The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NCC) has con­firmed that its dig­i­tal on­line plat­form—Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World—will go live on Fri­day 12th Feb­ru­ary 2021.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, the NCC says Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World will show­case much of the coun­try’s Car­ni­val’s rich and di­verse his­to­ry, em­ploy­ing el­e­ments such as an in­ter­ac­tive on­line mu­se­um, live and pre-record­ed streams, and ac­cess to part­ner ser­vices and prod­ucts.

“This is a dig­i­tal en­ter­tain­ment ecosys­tem that is FREE to the pub­lic,” the NCC news re­lease con­firms.  “Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World will be pop­u­lat­ed with 100% lo­cal con­tent and will serve as both home and host to a broad spec­trum of en­gag­ing, in­for­ma­tive, and en­ter­tain­ing Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ences.”

It added: “The on­line plat­form is in­tend­ed to serve in con­tin­u­ing the dri­ve to sus­tain­ably de­vel­op the Car­ni­val in­dus­try, add val­ue to the Car­ni­val prod­uct, and bet­ter po­si­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go as a mar­ket leader in Car­ni­val en­ter­tain­ment and en­light­en­ment across the board.”

The NCC says that Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World, work­ing in tan­dem with projects be­ing host­ed by the Com­mis­sion’s Spe­cial In­ter­est Groups—Pan Trin­ba­go, TU­CO and the TTC­BA—will go be­yond the vir­tu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Car­ni­val’s the­mat­ic el­e­ments to in­clude a va­ri­ety of in­dus­tri­al as­pects that range from lo­cal cui­sine and drinks to arts and crafts, and ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion on ma­jor tourist ac­tiv­i­ties and des­ti­na­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In its de­but, Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World will al­so fea­ture en­gag­ing and in­ter­ac­tive con­tent, in­clud­ing Steel Pan Ex­hi­bi­tions, Kings and Queens, and Ca­lyp­so Mon­archs through the years. It al­so will fea­ture scin­til­lat­ing sub­jects in­clud­ing women in car­ni­val and the evo­lu­tion of key his­tor­i­cal car­ni­val char­ac­ters and events.

 

The COVID-19 ef­fect

 

Winston Peters, Chairman of the National Carnival Commission of Trinidad and Tobago (NCC).

Winston Peters, Chairman of the National Carnival Commission of Trinidad and Tobago (NCC).

 

NCC Chair­man, Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters ac­knowl­edges that COVID-19 has hurt the Car­ni­val in­dus­try.

“COVID-19 has dealt a heavy blow to the Car­ni­val com­mu­ni­ty and to the Car­ni­val in­dus­try. While many with­in the pri­vate sec­tor and the na­tion­al and Car­ni­val com­mu­ni­ties have done their best in re­sponse to the chal­lenges pre­sent­ed, the NCC is com­mit­ted to do­ing all that it can, much in keep­ing with its man­dates and guide­lines,” he said, con­cern­ing the launch of Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World.

“We have tak­en great pains to of­fer a prod­uct that, in adding val­ue to Car­ni­val, would not en­cour­age peo­ple to cre­ate in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ly sized so­cial gath­er­ings around it, as this would most cer­tain­ly re­verse the sub­stan­tial gains made over the past 10 months to get COVID-19 un­der con­trol,” he point­ed out.

Pe­ters drew spe­cial at­ten­tion to the fact that many be­lieved the NCC was not go­ing to get in­volved de­spite the can­celled event.

“In bring­ing some­thing of val­ue to the peo­ple, we al­ways knew that we have to be re­spon­si­ble in what­ev­er we pro­duce,” Pe­ters added.

“We knew that it could not be a one-off vir­tu­al event that en­cour­aged large groups of peo­ple to con­gre­gate, but some­thing that could be en­joyed on a small­er scale, well with­in ex­ist­ing pro­to­cols.

“It al­so had to be some­thing up­on which we could build, show­case, and be proud of,” Pe­ters said.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World is a fan­tas­tic op­por­tu­ni­ty to do this, and we are ex­treme­ly ex­cit­ed to work with our stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing our Spe­cial In­ter­est Groups, to present it to the world,” Pe­ters added.

 

Di­manche Gras 2021

 

In ad­di­tion to the On­line Mu­se­um, Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World al­so of­fers a suite of ser­vices and ca­pac­i­ties, in­clud­ing an on­line mar­ket­place, as well as the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to host live and pre-record­ed events.

One such pre-record­ed event will be a spe­cial edi­tion of the much beloved Di­manche Gras show, pro­duced this year by renowned play­wright and artis­tic di­rec­tor, Davlin Thomas.

The 2021 edi­tion of the Di­manche Gras show is themed “Trinidad Car­ni­val – Be­yond Vir­tu­al”.

“This year’s show will present his­tor­i­cal Trinidad and To­ba­go, from the 1880s to the present as a mag­i­cal re­al space,” Davlin Thomas ex­plained, “where the past and the present con­verge to fa­cil­i­tate three dis­tinct tiers of con­tent—archival (past), con­tem­po­rary con­tent (present), and a sig­nal event that em­ploys both past and present el­e­ments, as per­formed by some of to­day’s up-and-com­ing artistes.”

“It presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to rem­i­nisce and re­flect,” Thomas added.

 

One NCC ini­tia­tive of many to pre­serve Car­ni­val

 

Colin Lucas, Chief Executive Officer of the National Carnival Commission of Trinidad and Tobago (NCC).

Colin Lucas, Chief Executive Officer of the National Carnival Commission of Trinidad and Tobago (NCC).

 

NCC’s Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Col­in Lu­cas, shared de­tails on the Com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion to launch Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World, ful­ly tak­ing in­to ac­count the ad­verse so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­pacts of COVID-19 on Car­ni­val, tourism, and the na­tion as a whole.

“With Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World, we are pleased to of­fer the pub­lic a fresh yet fa­mil­iar look and feel to our Car­ni­val, which will al­ways hold a very dear place in our hearts,” Lu­cas said.

“So, while the of­fi­cial de­ci­sion to can­cel the an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tions may have come as quite a shock and dis­ap­point­ment to many, we al­ways have to be cog­nizant of what we are do­ing and why we are do­ing it,” Lu­cas added.

The NCC says its next steps, as an or­gan­i­sa­tion com­mit­ted to cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment, cel­e­bra­tion, and preser­va­tion, de­pend heav­i­ly on build­ing on the ground­work laid with the suc­cess­ful launch of Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val World.

“As we con­tin­ue to build it out well past Feb­ru­ary 12, we want the pub­lic to know that this is as much their plat­form, as it is ours,” Lu­cas as­sured. 

“With that comes our com­mit­ment to work with each oth­er—and not against each oth­er—to turn the un­pleas­ant­ness of a can­celled Car­ni­val 2021, in­to a stronger, bet­ter Car­ni­val 2022 and be­yond,” the NCC CEO con­firmed.

Carnival


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