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).

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).

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.