From all re­ports, and that which was seen and heard on the streets of the ma­jor mas cen­tres across Trinidad, Car­ni­val 2026 ful­filled its ex­pec­ta­tions.

One his­toric vic­to­ry is that of Machel Mon­tano tak­ing the Road March ti­tle for the 12th time with his En­core to sur­pass the 11 vic­to­ries of the ac­knowl­edged Road March King, the Grand­mas­ter, Ald­wyn “Lord Kitch­en­er” Roberts. The vic­to­ry ar­guably places Mon­tano in a place which was not ex­pect­ed of him when, at nine years old, he ap­peared in the Ca­lyp­so Monarch Fi­nals at the Grand Stand and sang Too Young to So­ca. He is now a ma­ture ca­lyp­so/so­ca icon.

Where­as there have been com­plaints and crit­i­cisms about the qual­i­ty of ca­lyp­so in the form of so­cio-po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary, un­doubt­ed­ly, over the last cou­ple of years, there has been a dis­tinct im­prove­ment in the qual­i­ty of com­po­si­tion, lyrics, fo­cus and pre­sen­ta­tion of the so­ca.

Tues­day’s mas­quer­ade lived up to its billing as a colour­ful spec­ta­cle. Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro al­so re­port­ed with great fer­vour that pub­lic be­hav­iour has been law-abid­ing, in keep­ing with the gen­er­al spir­it of po­lice op­er­a­tions over the pe­ri­od of the cel­e­bra­tions.

The par­tic­i­pa­tion of na­tion­als at home and those who trek here from abroad to re­new that Tri­ni spir­it, to eat ah pelau, a dou­bles, and to once again ground with the cul­ture, which gave them life and sus­tains them through the long win­tery months, is of in­es­timable val­ue.

In fact, the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, in its 2025 Sur­vey of De­part­ing Vis­i­tors, es­ti­mat­ed that 34,194 tourists vis­it­ed Trinidad for last year’s Car­ni­val pe­ri­od, spend­ing a to­tal of $482.47 mil­lion (US$71.05 mil­lion). That for­eign ex­change would have been con­vert­ed by friends and fam­i­ly of tourists and at cam­bios and com­mer­cial banks across the coun­try, eas­ing for­eign ex­change pres­sures.

But tourist spend­ing is prob­a­bly equalled by the mon­ey spent by the thou­sands of lo­cals who at­tend all-in­clu­sive fetes, Car­ni­val shows or play mas.

It is good too, that Tri­nis liv­ing abroad have shared the cul­tur­al lifestyle with their friends and col­leagues, par­tic­u­lar­ly those in the north. Tri­nis born in the “cold,” the chil­dren and grand­chil­dren of those who have gone abroad, have al­so grown to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate what it is to have a ground­ing in the cul­tur­al lifestyle of their par­ents and grand­par­ents.

Car­ni­val 2026, there­fore, re­news the chal­lenge to Gov­ern­ment, the Car­ni­val in­dus­try, the mas­quer­aders, the steel­bands, pan­men and women, the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and their as­so­ci­a­tions, the econ­o­mists, the bed and break­fast sup­pli­ers, the large ho­tels and every­one in the tourism in­dus­try in To­ba­go, to come to­geth­er to make eco­nom­ic sense of the cul­tur­al prod­uct.

Gov­ern­ment must now lead the way in con­ceiv­ing of and treat­ing Car­ni­val as an in­vest­ment in­dus­try; to pro­vide in­sight to all Car­ni­val ac­tors in­to the eco­nom­ic, so­cial and the psy­cho­log­i­cal pos­si­bil­i­ties of the Car­ni­val and plan to take ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Leav­ing with the vis­i­tors of to­day and over the next few days, are sev­er­al of the artistes who ser­vice the car­ni­vals around the world; they have cre­at­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for them­selves. Which in­dus­try in T&T can pull off such a feat year af­ter year? No oth­er.