Shal­iza?Has­sanali

De­spite the con­tin­ued fall in oil prices, mas­quer­aders and par­ty­go­ers are not re­frain­ing from spend­ing for the 2015 Car­ni­val. As a mat­ter of fact, band­lead­ers and fete pro­mot­ers are pre­dict­ing a bumper Car­ni­val, as the sale of cos­tumes and tick­ets for all-in­clu­sive and gen­er­al fetes have been sell­ing out. In the face of cut­backs at all gov­ern­ment min­istries, econ­o­mist Dr Roger Ho­sein is urg­ing car­ni­val lovers to spend wise­ly and con­sid­er cut­ting ex­pens­es, as they en­joy the rev­el­ry in the com­ing weeks.

Pro­mot­er of So­ca Chut­ney Monarch and Girlz Gone White, George Singh, said the pub­lic had not yet felt the im­pact of the in­ter­na­tion­al oil prices, which fell be­low US$50 a bar­rel in Jan­u­ary. "Par­ty lovers have been plan­ning and putting aside mon­ey for their tick­ets months in ad­vance...way be­fore oil prices start­ed to drop. So it is not re­al­ly af­fect­ing their pock­ets. They are en­joy­ing Car­ni­val as nor­mal from what I heard. In my opin­ion, this is go­ing to be a great Car­ni­val."

Singh said if the price of oil con­tin­ued to tum­ble, Car­ni­val 2016 might be af­fect­ed. An­oth­er pro­mot­er, Cliff Har­ris who or­gan­is­es Army Fete, said if oil prices con­tin­ued to de­cline, cit­i­zens could be af­fect­ed. But for now, Har­ris said, peo­ple have been at­tend­ing par­ties and fetes as usu­al. "It has be­come part of our cul­ture." As it stood, Har­ris said, it cost a par­ty go­er up­ward of $600 to at­tend an all-in­clu­sive fete.

For a cou­ple, it would cost in ex­cess of $2,000. "Af­ter spend­ing that kind of mon­ey on tick­ets, a new out­fit, shoes and to style your hair in a sa­lon, how many fetes can an av­er­age cou­ple at­tend? They might just have to set­tle for one par­ty be­cause they would have to watch their spend­ing. But this would not stop them from en­joy­ing Car­ni­val."

'Par­ty go­ers will at­tend se­lec­tive fetes' Dex­ter Charles of Is­land Peo­ple, which pro­motes pop­u­lar fetes like In­som­nia and Girl Pow­er, said par­ty go­ers might be a lit­tle more se­lec­tive in the fetes they at­tend­ed. "They may not be ad­ven­tur­ous to try new ones, not know­ing what to ex­pect.

They would at­tend par­ties that worked in the past." Charles said Car­ni­val had be­come a sta­ple in a Tri­ni's di­et and peo­ple would still par­ty and en­joy them­selves to the max, even though it meant scal­ing down the num­ber of events they at­tend­ed this Car­ni­val. "This is go­ing to be a short, sweet Car­ni­val," Charles said. Charles said he ex­pect­ed his events to be well-at­tend­ed. "We are ex­pect­ing thou­sands of peo­ple." Tribe op­er­a­tions not af­fect­ed.

Rhi­an­non Pem­ber­ton, group man­ag­er of large band Tribe, ad­mit­ted that the dip in oil prices had in no way af­fect­ed the op­er­a­tions at their mas camp. Pem­ber­ton said the band's 13 sec­tions were sold out with­in weeks af­ter it was launched last Ju­ly.

The band has a fol­low­ing of close to 2,000 mas­quer­aders

Tribe will show­case its 2015 pre­sen­ta­tion Wings of De­sire. "It does not seem to be af­fect­ing us for the up­com­ing Car­ni­val. Tribe has not had can­cel­la­tions...any­thing more than the nor­mal. Peo­ple have al­ready be­gun pay­ing off for their cos­tumes. So we don't see it hav­ing a huge im­pact for 2015."

How­ev­er, Pem­ber­ton said, if the dip in oil prices per­sist­ed "this is some­thing we would def­i­nite­ly have to mon­i­tor and make plans for in 2016." The prices of Tribe's cos­tumes range in ex­cess of $3,000 up to $9,995.

Big Mike: Trinida­di­ans not study­ing oil prices

Band­leader of Lega­cy, Big Mike An­toine, said he did not see any dis­rup­tions for Car­ni­val. "Trinida­di­ans are not study­ing oil prices at this point in time." An­toine said no one had in­formed the coun­try to tight­en its belt. "As far as I know all is well. The coun­try is not pan­ick­ing in any way." An­toine said if oil prices con­tin­ued to de­cline, it could af­fect next year's Car­ni­val. "Right now, it is too ear­ly to tell.

But this year, peo­ple are still spend­ing their mon­ey be­cause they have al­ready worked out their bud­gets and events they would be at­tend­ing." Lega­cy will show­case 12 sec­tions which will cater for be­tween 1,500 and 2,000 mas­quer­aders. Four of the 12 sec­tions have al­ready been sold out. An­toine was op­ti­mistic that the re­main­ing eight sec­tions "would sell out" in the next few days.

Kalicha­ran: High de­mand for cos­tumes Aaron Kalicha­ran, as­sis­tant band­leader for Kalicha­ran Car­ni­val, said he ini­tial­ly thought that the slash in oil prices would af­fect their cos­tume sales, but he was wrong. From Box­ing Day, Kalicha­ran said, the band saw an in­flux of mas­quer­aders pay­ing and reg­is­ter­ing for cos­tumes. "This oil thing has not dis­rupt­ed our car­ni­val sales. We don't know what will hap­pen next year, but we are keep­ing a pos­i­tive at­ti­tude that all will go well with the econ­o­my."

This year, Kalicha­ran will grace the streets with eight sec­tions, three of which will be all-in­clu­sive. "Our av­er­age cos­tume is $1,500. The all-in­clu­sive sec­tions are priced be­tween $2,600 to $2,800. We are see­ing a pos­i­tive feed­back. I think if the oil prices con­tin­ue to dip it would af­fect Car­ni­val to a point, in that, par­ty-go­ers will at­tend less fetes. But peo­ple will still want to play their mas and free up them­selves. This will be a bumper Car­ni­val," Kalicha­ran said.

Ho­sein: Con­sid­er cut­ting ex­pens­es Ho­sein said even though some peo­ple con­tin­ued to spend freely, the rest of the econ­o­my was yet to feel the pinch of the im­pact. "While ex­port and gov­ern­ment rev­enues have tak­en a hit with the falling oil prices, the rest of the econ­o­my is faced with a time lag. Peo­ple are do­ing busi­ness as usu­al and they are spend­ing as usu­al. This would like­ly change in the com­ing four to six months if the price of oil re­mains at US$40 a bar­rel."

Ho­sein said if the price of oil were to climb to US$80 by this Sep­tem­ber "all the lessons that we should have learned from the fall in the price of oil we would have lost be­cause every­thing would go back to nor­mal." If, how­ev­er, oil prices re­mained low­er than US$50 a bar­rel for 2015, Ho­sein said, "then in 2016 band­lead­ers would have no choice but to use cheap­er ma­te­ri­als for cos­tumes, while pro­mot­ers may have to look at rent­ing venues that are less ex­pen­sive to cut costs."

For this Car­ni­val, Ho­sein said,"Peo­ple should con­sid­er car pool­ing and cool­er shar­ing a bit more to get the same ba­sic lev­el of rev­el­ry, but with a low­er lev­el of ex­pen­di­ture."