Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The say­ing that rain on­ly stops crick­et was ev­i­dent yes­ter­day af­ter­noon as sheets of pa­per, card­board box­es and sweaters were used as um­brel­las as rev­ellers en­joyed the free en­ter­tain­ment at the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade.

The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) of­fi­cial­ly launched Car­ni­val 2026 with a day of fes­tiv­i­ties where Car­ni­val char­ac­ters were packed in­to a full day of events, de­spite rain.

The event, themed Yuh Go Love Dis, saw part of the west­ern side of the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade trans­formed in­to a thor­ough­fare of cul­ture and com­merce.

The day be­gan at 9 am and end­ed well be­yond the sched­uled 6 pm clos­ing, due to both the rain that slowed pro­ceed­ings and the crowd not be­ing sat­is­fied with just two hours of en­ter­tain­ment.

Grac­ing the stage to keep the crowd jump­ing, wav­ing and win­ing, all the while bal­anc­ing their var­i­ous cov­er­ings, were Iw­er George, Ter­ri Lyons, Ker­ry John, Dru­patee, Aaron Dun­can and oth­ers.

Passers­by were greet­ed by icon­ic Car­ni­val char­ac­ters like fan­cy sailors, blue dev­ils, Dame Lor­raines and the ever-pop­u­lar moko jumbies.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin thanked those who stayed to the end, re­mind­ing them that Car­ni­val be­longed to the peo­ple and was a re­flec­tion of who we are.

And with just 100 days to go be­fore “the great­est show on earth”, she promised a sim­i­lar launch in San Fer­nan­do, en­sur­ing com­mu­ni­ties from Laven­tille to Point Fortin would get their taste of the Car­ni­val launch.