The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA) To­ba­go Re­gion pres­i­dent Ter­rance San­di­ford is hail­ing the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed To­ba­go Fest a “tremen­dous suc­cess.”

“All events were ex­treme­ly well at­tend­ed,” San­di­ford told To­ba­go To­day.

He said af­ter an ab­sence of more than a decade the an­nu­al two-day Car­ni­val-type event re­turned “to ex­cite thou­sands of pa­trons, most­ly from Trinidad.”

Brand­ed “The Re­birth of To­ba­go Fest,” the event be­gan last Sat­ur­day with J’ou­vert at Ca­noe Bay and end­ed on Sun­day with a Cool Down event at Swal­lows, Crown Point.

To­ba­go Fest be­gan in 1998 and con­tin­ued un­til 2006. When San­di­ford took up the man­tle of NC­BA To­ba­go Re­gion boss in 2011 he vowed to re­turn the fes­ti­val to To­ba­go. It took him 12 years to make his dream come true.

For him, the sup­port and turnout were over­whelm­ing.

“We had so much sup­port from pa­trons that we were ex­treme­ly glad that ASP Pow­der and his team were on hand to keep the crowds in check,” he said.

He ad­mit­ted too that many pa­trons want­ed to trav­el to To­ba­go for the event but were con­strained by the lack of space on the air and sea bridges.

“We had a large con­tin­gent from the south and it could have been big­ger, but they could not come be­cause there were no avail­able seats for them to trav­el.”

He was par­tic­u­lar­ly ex­cit­ed by the re­sponse from the per­sons view­ing the event live via the in­ter­net.

“Per­sons as far as Swe­den were ex­press­ing in­ter­est and say­ing they liked what they were see­ing and they stayed view­ing for long pe­ri­ods,” he said.

How­ev­er, to stage the event was not easy.

“We faced all kinds of chal­lenges rang­ing from the lack of spon­sor­ship and the lengths some peo­ple went to en­sure the event did not take place,” he ad­mit­ted.

But the chal­lenges have strength­ened his re­solve to make it a big­ger and bet­ter fes­ti­val next year.

“We know the fes­ti­val will be held from Sep­tem­ber 26-29 and al­ready we have a char­ter of 250 peo­ple from abroad,” he said.

He has con­tin­ued sup­port from NC­BA Trinidad, ex­ist­ing and new spon­sors.

“Some spon­sors de­cid­ed to look at what we were able to ac­com­plish with rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle fund­ing and were im­pressed and have pledged their sup­port for 2019.”