Car­ni­val 2026 is over.

The trucks have cleared the streets of Port-of-Spain, the last mas­quer­aders have shed their feath­ers and beads, and thou­sands are wak­ing up this morn­ing with tired feet, hoarse voic­es and mem­o­ries that will linger far longer than the fete dust.

By sev­er­al of­fi­cial ac­counts—from band­lead­ers to po­lice es­ti­mates —this year’s Car­ni­val record­ed a no­tice­able surge in par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Large bands cross­ing the stages and flood­ing the cap­i­tal ap­peared denser than in re­cent years, par­tic­u­lar­ly yes­ter­day, as many of the ma­jor bands by­passed the main judg­ing points on Car­ni­val Mon­day.

At­ten­dance at key Car­ni­val precincts in Port-of-Spain and re­gion­al hubs was sig­nif­i­cant­ly heav­ier, sig­nalling not on­ly strong lo­cal turnout but a healthy re­turn of di­as­po­ra rev­ellers re­claim­ing the cel­e­bra­tion we mar­ket to the world.

Now, the fi­nal act rests with the win­ning Car­ni­val bands and, even more ea­ger­ly, with the Na­tion­al Road March ver­dict, due lat­er to­day.

Eigh­teen songs were of­fi­cial­ly reg­is­tered this year, but by mid­day yes­ter­day, the con­test ap­peared to have nar­rowed to a fa­mil­iar show­down.

Aaron “Voice” St Louis’ Cyah Be­have, Machel Mon­tano’s En­core and Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Road Man dom­i­nat­ed speak­er box­es and main stages, though Voice and Mon­tano seemed to have pulled de­ci­sive­ly ahead in play counts.

A vic­to­ry for Mon­tano would make him the out­right all-time Road March leader, break­ing his cur­rent tie on 11 ti­tles with the late Ald­wyn “Lord Kitch­en­er” Roberts.

Kitch­en­er amassed his 11 wins over 30 years; Mon­tano, should he pre­vail, would eclipse that mark with­in 29 years of his first tri­umph in 1997—an achieve­ment that would fur­ther ce­ment his gen­er­a­tional dom­i­nance.

The stakes were just as sig­nif­i­cant in oth­er are­nas.

At Di­manche Gras, Ter­ri Lyons stamped her au­thor­i­ty on the Ca­lyp­so Monarch stage, claim­ing the $1 mil­lion prize and us­ing her win­ning com­po­si­tion Bless­ing, to un­der­score the so­cial heal­ing many cit­i­zens be­lieve the coun­try ur­gent­ly needs.

In the steel­band fi­nals, the North Stand pulsed with old-time en­er­gy as Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus nar­row­ly de­fend­ed their Large Con­ven­tion­al Band ti­tle, edg­ing bp Rene­gades by a sin­gle point to se­cure their own $1 mil­lion purse in a fin­ish that kept pa­trons on edge un­til the fi­nal an­nounce­ment.

Be­yond ti­tles and prize mon­ey, two broad­er themes de­fined this Car­ni­val. The first was cul­tur­al in­clu­siv­i­ty.

Ris­ing costs were wide­ly ac­knowl­edged, with some pre­mi­um all-in­clu­sive events com­mand­ing tick­et prices north of TT$4,000.

Yet, ini­tia­tives such as Fla­va Vil­lage en­sured that ac­ces­si­ble spaces re­mained for pa­trons to en­joy per­for­mances from some of the biggest names in the cul­ture, pre­serv­ing Car­ni­val’s grass­roots heart­beat even amid pre­mi­u­mi­sa­tion.

The sec­ond was safe­ty and or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The Po­lice Ser­vice’s Car­ni­val ini­tia­tive, Op­er­a­tion Se­cure De VIBES, led by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Suzette Mar­tin, placed high-vis­i­bil­i­ty pa­trols at the cen­tre of the se­cu­ri­ty strat­e­gy. This, how­ev­er, did not pre­vent a mur­der and a cou­ple shoot­ings dur­ing J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in Port-of-Spain.

As the coun­try awaits the of­fi­cial Road March tal­ly, the pre­vail­ing sen­ti­ment on the ground is un­mis­tak­able.

Whether the crown goes to the Viking, the Voice or the King of So­ca, the deep­er vic­to­ry be­longs to the thou­sands who took to the streets seek­ing re­lease and re­dis­cov­ery.

In the wine and wave, in the “be­hav­ing bad,” they found—if on­ly for two days—a mea­sure of free­dom from heav­ier na­tion­al con­cerns.

And that, per­haps, is Car­ni­val’s truest prize.