To­ba­go mas bands are 80 per cent sold out for the is­land’s third an­nu­al Car­ni­val, with thou­sands reg­is­tered for J’Ou­vert and pret­ty mas on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day.

This was con­firmed by the pres­i­dent of To­ba­go Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val As­so­ci­a­tion Dex­ter Sandy who en­cour­aged last-minute vis­i­tors to take ad­van­tage of the re­main­ing deals. “In terms of J’Ou­vert, most bands are al­most to ca­pac­i­ty. For the pret­ty mas, there are still units on sale. Bands are re­port­ing good sales. The band­lead­ers are ex­cit­ed for what is to come on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day and we are wait­ing to show­case our­selves on the road,” he said.

“There are J’Ou­vert pack­ages rang­ing from as low as $400 to $600 or $700. It’s re­al­ly an af­ford­able J’Ou­vert ex­pe­ri­ence here in To­ba­go. When it comes to mas, I’m see­ing cos­tumes from as low as $1200 to as high as $3500.”

Sandy said mas bands ex­pect more than 20,000 vis­i­tors, of which 11,000 will be rev­ellers on the road for the Car­ni­val week­end.

“I know for sure we are see­ing a vast in­crease in sales. For Icon­ic Mas our J’Ou­vert num­bers have al­most dou­bled. We are look­ing at 500 mas­quer­aders on the road. We want to give them the best ex­pe­ri­ence. “We are ex­cit­ed to see what the Car­ni­val prod­uct will grow in­to. We are still young but I will say we are look­ing for­ward to a safe sea­son full of ex­cite­ment,” he said

There are 36 bands reg­is­tered to par­tic­i­pate in the Car­ni­val.