Shar­ing a unit­ed pas­sion for the 2011 Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val in the Gar­dens, set to take place on Oc­to­ber 9 at noon, the Mi­a­mi Broward One Car­ni­val Host Com­mit­tee is po­si­tioned to pro­duce one of the biggest and most vi­brant cul­tur­al pre­sen­ta­tions that the south Flori­da area has ever wit­nessed.With more than 20 mas­quer­ade bands and six steel­bands parad­ing and com­pet­ing for Band of the Year brag­ging rights, the streets of Mi­a­mi Gar­dens will be adorned with beau­ti­ful, colour­ful and in­tri­cate cos­tumes along with the in­fec­tious mu­si­cal sounds of so­ca. With a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on tourism, Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val in the Gar­dens has be­come a sta­ple event with­in the fab­ric of south Flori­da.The Car­ni­val con­nois­seur will have a myr­i­ad of sig­na­ture events to choose from. The sea­son kicks off with a host of cel­e­bra­to­ry ac­tiv­i­ties that com­mence with the Miss Mi­a­mi Broward Car­ni­val pageant on Sep­tem­ber 24 at the Lou Rawls Cen­ter, Flori­da Memo­r­i­al Uni­ver­si­ty. The pageant is in its sixth year and has af­ford­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for young women of Caribbean de­scent to be­come an am­bas­sador of their rich and mul­ti-cul­tur­al Caribbean her­itage.

Con­tin­u­ing the lega­cy of sup­port­ing young peo­ple, the Ju­nior Car­ni­val will be held on Oc­to­ber 2 at Cen­tral Broward Re­gion­al Park from noon to 7pm. This is a free event that will in­clude a pa­rade of bands and mas­quer­aders, bounce house, face paint­ing and oth­er fun ac­tiv­i­ties for the kids.Oc­to­ber 8 at Sun Life Sta­di­um, the non stop so­ca par­ty known as So­caFest will take place from 11pm-4am with an all-star line­up of heavy­weights in the so­ca mu­sic in­dus­try, in­clud­ing Roy Cape fea­tur­ing Blaxx, Dil E Nadan, Spec­trum Band (USVI), De­stra, Ed­win Year­wood, Mr Ve­gas, Tizzy, and much more.The cli­max of the week is the 2011 Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val in the Gar­dens pa­rade of bands on the streets of Mi­a­mi Gar­dens, and a live con­cert in Sun Life Sta­di­um with a line up of so­ca's lead­ing per­form­ers. Among them are Al­i­son Hinds, Ongu & Red Hot Flames, Tal­pree, Ben­jai, Skin­ny Fab­u­lous, and Iw­er George.This year's spon­sors in­clude Carib Beer, Caribbean Air­lines, West­ern Union, Mc­Don­alds, Vox3 Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, NBC, New Times (Broward and Mi­a­mi), Lauder­hill Re­gion­al Cham­ber of Com­merce- Ex­po 2011, Greater Fort Laud­erdale Con­ven­tion and Vis­i­tors Bu­reau, Hot 105, and with the sup­port of the Mi­a­mi-Dade Coun­ty De­part­ment of Cul­tur­al Af­fairs and the Cul­tur­al Af­fairs Coun­cil, the Mi­a­mi-Dade Coun­ty may­or and board of coun­ty com­mis­sion­ers.