Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go Car­ni­val 2026 kicked off with an in­ci­dent which of­fi­cials say did not dis­rupt the fourth year of the Oc­to­ber fes­tiv­i­ties.

A man hired to help en­sure the smooth flow of traf­fic for To­ba­go Car­ni­val was struck by a po­lice car along Wil­son Road in Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day morn­ing. A video of the in­ci­dent, which was post­ed on­line, showed the left side of the ve­hi­cle col­lid­ing with the 40-year-old Bon Ac­cord man as it was trav­el­ling north along the street.

A me­dia re­lease from the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion Ltd (TF­CL) said the man was a tem­po­rary work­er and did not sus­tain se­ri­ous in­juries. The com­mis­sion said the man was tak­en to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and is in good spir­its.

The in­ci­dent came af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, dur­ing a walk­a­bout through the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions, com­mend­ed his of­fi­cers for a safe car­ni­val.

“Ex­cel­lent job by the gold com­man­der, ex­cel­lent job by all the par­tic­i­pat­ing agen­cies, the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, the of­fi­cers that came in to as­sist, I’m very pleased,” he said.

On the se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus for ma­jor events, Gue­var­ro said the TTPS has had am­ple prac­tice in the past and was well aware of what is re­quired.

“The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has a had a num­ber of years ex­pe­ri­enc­ing with all Car­ni­val-re­lat­ed and mas events. Thus far, we have kept 100 per cent con­trol on the se­cu­ri­ty lay­out and lo­gis­tics that will be rolled out.”

He al­so thanked the pub­lic for com­ply­ing with po­lice’s re­quest on Fri­day to avoid con­fronta­tions dur­ing the fes­ti­val. He not­ed the event con­tin­ues to get bet­ter.

“As usu­al, ex­cel­lent, and con­tin­ues to grow every year. I am im­pressed.”

Gue­var­ro’s of­fi­cers kept a close eye on the ac­tiv­i­ties as thou­sands of rev­ellers flood­ed the streets of Scar­bor­ough. The late start to the J’Ou­vert did lit­tle to damp­en the ex­plo­sion of en­er­gy of the bands as mas­quer­aders made their way past the var­i­ous judg­ing points.

Min­utes be­fore po­lice shut down the J’Ou­vert around 10.23 am, one mas­quer­ad­er with a broad smile on her face shout­ed out, “To­ba­go Car­ni­val is the best and safest ever.”

The ju­bi­la­tion was ev­i­dent among rev­ellers very ear­ly as Sin City, one of the first bands to cross the stage, showed Fi­fa World Cup fever was still alive with gi­ant beach balls in­clud­ed in their pre­sen­ta­tion.

Fe­male band mem­bers wore tall socks and showed their foot­ball skills could match their win­ing abil­i­ty along Ca­lyp­so Rose Boule­vard.

Mean­while, Icon­ic band kept the tra­di­tion­al J’Ou­vert spir­it alive with a sec­tion ded­i­cat­ed to jab jab. Their bod­ies coat­ed with oil, rev­ellers en­joyed them­selves when­ev­er DJs played new So­ca Ti­tans champ Tam Tam’s win­ning song. His track, Fol­low Me, pays homage to his Grena­di­an roots. A few Grena­di­an flags were spot­ted in Icon­ic band, with some mas­quer­aders adding horns to com­plete the look.

Bago Limers brought its unique vibe to the fes­tiv­i­ties with a wa­ter truck cool­ing down rev­ellers from the in­tense heat.

Bago Limers mar­ket­ing man­ag­er Av­ery Seaton said that while Tri­nis make up the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple in the Car­ni­val, the in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­est this year was at an all-time high. He said the band boasts mem­bers from the US, Lon­don and Cana­da.

“It’s like a ba­by tak­ing its first step. It crawls and then it walks. Right now we’re walk­ing, but next year get ready for the run­ning,” he said.

Seaton cred­it­ed the Bago Limers team for putting to­geth­er the pro­duc­tion so mem­bers can en­joy the road ex­pe­ri­ence.