Af­ter a suc­cess­ful run at Car­ifes­ta XVI, Fes­ti­val Ra­dio is back for Car­ni­val 2020.

Fes­ti­val Ra­dio is an on­line ra­dio op­er­a­tion pro­duced by Tri­ni Good Me­dia, the com­pa­ny run by jour­nal­ists Ar­dene Sir­joo and Fran­ka Philip.

For sev­en days in the run-up to Car­ni­val, Fes­ti­val Ra­dio will pro­vide dai­ly four-hour broad­casts packed with in­ter­views and dis­cus­sions. They will al­so broad­cast on Ash Wednes­day with a spe­cial wrap up and cel­e­bra­tion pro­gramme.

"Trinidad Car­ni­val is our ul­ti­mate fes­ti­val," said Sir­joo. "We love the buzz, the cre­ativ­i­ty, the ex­cite­ment and of course, the bac­cha­nal that makes our Car­ni­val so unique."

Fes­ti­val Ra­dio which kicks off on Feb­ru­ary 17, will be based at the home of Car­ni­val, the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah.

"The NCC has been ex­treme­ly help­ful in fa­cil­i­tat­ing us," Sir­joo said. "And it makes to­tal sense for us to be lo­cat­ed in the heart of the Car­ni­val."

Philip said Tri­ni Good Me­dia was en­cour­aged by the re­sponse Fes­ti­val Ra­dio got at Car­ifes­ta.

"We were re­al­ly hap­py with how Car­ifes­ta went. Peo­ple from across the di­as­po­ra reached out to com­pli­ment us about the mix of con­tent we pro­vid­ed," she said. "We in­tend to do just as well this time, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause our di­as­po­ra folks are itch­ing for news from home."

For Car­ifes­ta, Fes­ti­val Ra­dio ran dai­ly nine-hour broad­casts but for Car­ni­val 2020, there will be a more com­pact sched­ule aimed at the dri­ve-time au­di­ence.

Philip said they will cov­er a range of top­ics in­clud­ing, the emer­gence of lo­cal dance­hall artistes like Trinidad Kil­la in so­ca, the new gen­er­a­tion of Tra­di­tion­al Mas cre­ators and mak­ing our na­tion­al fes­ti­val "green­er."

Fes­ti­val Ra­dio's broad­casts will be­gin on Feb­ru­ary 17. Broad­casts start at 3 pm dai­ly, ex­cept on Feb­ru­ary 18, which be­gins at 1 pm.

The livestream can be ac­cessed on the web­site, trini­good­me­dia.com as well as on the so­cial me­dia pages for In­sta­gram and Face­book.

"Lis­ten­ers can take Fes­ti­val Ra­dio with them, lis­ten on their phones and mo­bile de­vices as well as on the desk­top," Philip said.

For an al­ter­na­tive look at Car­ni­val, you can check out Fes­ti­val Ra­dio.

SIDE­BAR

To learn more about Fes­ti­val Ra­dio, vis­it the web­site trini­good­me­dia.com or check the so­cial plat­forms @trini­good­me­dia on In­sta­gram or face­book.com/trini­good­me­dia