Even though peo­ple will not be able to en­joy the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence as they are ac­cus­tomed to by at­tend­ing fetes and danc­ing in the streets for two days, in­no­v­a­tive par­ty pro­mot­ers have as­sured that the vir­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence will be just as good.

In an at­tempt to en­sure fetes, con­certs and oth­er pri­vate events can con­tin­ue in 2021, vir­tu­al plat­forms are be­ing in­tro­duced where pa­trons can ac­cess events, in­ter­act with spon­sors, and view con­certs for a nom­i­nal fee.

Iw­er George kicked off the vir­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence on Box­ing Night and re­vealed plans to con­tin­ue dur­ing the sea­son with week­ly shows via his Iw­er Stage and pos­si­bly even a vir­tu­al Iw­er Wednes­day.

Among those host­ing vir­tu­al fetes is the Fa­ti­ma Old Boys As­so­ci­a­tion (FO­BA) and the So­ka in Mo­ka Foun­da­tion.

Fa­ti­ma was the first out of the gates as they host­ed a free three-night event be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 to 3, fea­tur­ing Blaxx and De All Starz, Dil-E-Nadan, and Sekon Sta and the So­ca Band.

FO­BA of­fi­cials said they de­cid­ed to go vir­tu­al fol­low­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Al­though peo­ple could have ac­cessed the event for free, of­fi­cials said do­na­tions which would go to­wards the up­keep and main­te­nance of the school.

Mean­while, Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Trin­i­ty Col­lege So­ka In Mo­ka Foun­da­tion, Dex­ter Charles said al­though they were ini­tial­ly dis­ap­point­ed by the an­nounce­ment that there would be no Car­ni­val in 2021, they too de­cid­ed to host a fete of a dif­fer­ent kind this year.

So­ka in Mo­ka is one of the most pop­u­lar events on the Car­ni­val cal­en­dar and ac­cord­ing to Charles, “It was very im­por­tant to con­tin­ue with tra­di­tion.”

De­scrib­ing their brand as one which they had spent 22 years build­ing and was very strong, he said it would have been sad to miss a year. In keep­ing with es­tab­lished norms, “The Com­mit­tee agreed we had to have an event al­beit some ver­sion of So­ka in Mo­ka.”

And while pa­trons of this event are be­ing charged US$15 for ear­ly bird tick­ets and US$22 for reg­u­lar tick­ets, Charles said even though peo­ple are cau­tious, they have re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion at­ten­dance from sup­port­ers as far away as Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, and New York.

He re­vealed the im­mer­sive ex­pe­ri­ence be­ing pro­vid­ed through CEO of Yel­lar TV, Akhen­aton La Bor­de had re­sult­ed in this year’s of­fer­ing ti­tled So­ka in Mo­ka Up­loaded.

Charles ex­plained that pa­trons will come to the “gate” just as they would have in 2020 and walk around, and vis­it booths where they can in­ter­act with spon­sors, play games to win prizes, and ben­e­fit from dis­counts.

He said the host would an­nounce when the en­ter­tain­ment is ready and pa­trons can pro­ceed to the front of the vir­tu­al stage where they will view the con­cert. The event would be held on Jan­u­ary 17 and will be­gin at 8 pm.