It was probably the least surprising news of the 2014 Carnival season. Changes to the problematic parade route were suggested and loudly condemned–and this was happening with mere weeks to go before bands hit the road to turn thousands of costumed masqueraders into a festival that this country once called, without rolling our collective eyes, the greatest show on Earth.
It's simply astonishing that the National Carnival Commission, charged with managing the festival, opened a discussion about a reversal of the parade route through the Queen's Park Savannah with just a few weeks to go before the festival takes to the road.
After Carnival 2013, the National Carnival Commission hosted several stakeholder talks to determine best practices and approaches to improve the festival. The NCC sensibly stripped things down to the basics from the start, asking first what it should be expected to do as the official convener of Carnival and how things might be changed to reflect current reality.
Many of these meetings collapsed in the face of naked self-interest. Protests and submissions were hallmarked by narrow, profit-focused thinking while the larger meaning and execution of the festival often seemed to get lost in quite personal crosstalk.The whole exercise advanced few ideas designed to serve the festival as a whole and generally seemed to represent quite aggressive efforts at ensuring the survival and profitability of separate sectors of the Carnival community.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/digital/new-members