Kevon Felmine

De­spite a slight­ly low­er at­ten­dance on the road for Car­ni­val 2015, Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­ster Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas de­clared the cel­e­bra­tions a suc­cess.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, at the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal, Dou­glas said while there may have been less par­tic­i­pa­tion in Port-of-Spain on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, there was an in­crease in com­mu­ni­ty events.

He said all agen­cies in­volved in Car­ni­val were on the ball in en­sur­ing that plans were ex­e­cut­ed ef­fi­cient­ly. He said this re­sult­ed in shows such as Panora­ma and Di­manche Gras fin­ish­ing in its al­lot­ed time, re­sult­ing a bet­ter pro­duc­tion for both the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

"Of course we have the is­sue of fi­nances, most of the huge bands are all-in­clu­sive and they cost a sig­nif­i­cant amount of mon­ey. It might be a good op­por­tu­ni­ty now to re­duce the cost of their mas," he said, as one of the rea­sons for few­er mas­quer­aders.

"Pri­or to Car­ni­val 2015, I came here and said we were look­ing for­ward to a very suc­cess­ful Car­ni­val so I am back to tell you it has been such. Car­ni­val 2015 was very suc­cess­ful in many ways. I think the plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion that we start­ed very ear­ly in the year paid off."

He said there were rough­ly 40,000 reg­u­lar vis­i­tors from Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da, Chi­na and South Africa, in­clud­ing the may­or from South African city where Car­ni­val is be­ing sold. He added that a team from Bar­ba­dos al­so vis­it­ed to see how Car­ni­val can have a greater in­flu­ence in the is­land's Crop Over Fes­ti­val.

No is­sue with So­cadrome

Not­ing that the So­cadrome has wooed some of the big bands away from the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah stage on Car­ni­val Tues­day, Dou­glas said he has no prob­lem with it as it of­fers an al­ter­na­tive for mas­quer­aders. Dou­glas who viewed Tribe cross­ing the So­cadrome at the Jean Pierre Com­plex on Tues­day said it was yet to be a to­tal suc­cess in terms of the crowd it at­tracts.

"I think the So­cadrome pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for mas­quer­aders who want­ed to do a par­tic­u­lar kind of mas and play mas in a par­tic­u­lar kind of way, and peo­ple who want­ed to view a par­tic­u­lar kind of mas.

No is­sue with So­cadrome

Not­ing that the So­cadrome has wooed some of the big bands away from the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah stage on Car­ni­val Tues­day, Dou­glas said he has no prob­lem with it as it of­fers an al­ter­na­tive for mas­quer­aders. Dou­glas who viewed Tribe cross­ing the So­cadrome at the Jean Pierre Com­plex on Tues­day said it was yet to be a to­tal suc­cess in terms of the crowd it at­tracts.

"I think the So­cadrome pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for mas­quer­aders who want­ed to do a par­tic­u­lar kind of mas and play mas in a par­tic­u­lar kind of way, and peo­ple who want­ed to view a par­tic­u­lar kind of mas.