An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

For Hilton Trinidad’s Lav­ish, the fo­cus has al­ways been less about how many peo­ple can be packed in­to a space and more about how the night flows.

Now in its sixth edi­tion, the all-in­clu­sive Car­ni­val fete has built a rep­u­ta­tion as a pre­mi­um, care­ful­ly cu­rat­ed ex­pe­ri­ence—one that pri­ori­tis­es de­tail, com­fort and pac­ing over sheer scale.

Hilton Trinidad’s gen­er­al man­ag­er, Olivi­er Mau­maire, told Guardian Me­dia that this phi­los­o­phy con­tin­ues to guide every de­ci­sion sur­round­ing the event, which will be held on Sun­day.

“We con­sid­er Lav­ish a bou­tique fete, not a mega pro­duc­tion,” Mau­maire said. “When there are too many peo­ple, it stops be­ing a good ex­pe­ri­ence. For us, the en­tire venue is VIP.”

This year’s theme, 1001 Nights, draws in­spi­ra­tion from Mid­dle East­ern and North African cul­ture, shap­ing the dé­cor, light­ing, food and stag­ing across the Hilton grounds. Mul­ti­ple zones and stages have been de­signed to en­cour­age move­ment, with food and bev­er­age op­tions spread through­out the venue rather than con­cen­trat­ed in a sin­gle area.

Plan­ning for Lav­ish be­gins al­most as soon as the pre­vi­ous edi­tion ends.

“We do a post-mortem every year,” Mau­maire said. “We col­lect feed­back, we meet with guests again, and we start prepar­ing very ear­ly. The goal is al­ways to do bet­ter.”

One area re­fined for this year is food dis­tri­b­u­tion. Ad­di­tion­al sta­tions have been added to en­sure pa­trons are nev­er far from a meal, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the pre­mi­um sec­tion, where eight food points will be avail­able. Bev­er­age ser­vice has al­so been stream­lined.

“We don’t like the idea that you have to go to one booth for one drink and an­oth­er booth for some­thing else,” Mau­maire said. “Wher­ev­er you are, you can find what you need.”

De­spite ris­ing al­co­hol costs across the in­dus­try, Mau­maire said the Lav­ish ex­pe­ri­ence will not be com­pro­mised.

“Lav­ish is a full ex­pe­ri­ence, so it al­lows us to man­age costs dif­fer­ent­ly,” he said. “Qual­i­ty was the rea­son we start­ed this event, and we will not af­fect that.”

On the culi­nary side, ex­ec­u­tive chef Ed­uar­do Fraus­to Cor­nish said the 1001 Nights con­cept opened the door to some­thing dif­fer­ent. Two guest chefs from Ar­genti­na and Brazil will join the Hilton team, along­side a large open-fire bar­be­cue sta­tion serv­ing Ara­bic-style roast­ed beef, lamb and chick­en.

“It’s go­ing to be spec­tac­u­lar,” Fraus­to Cor­nish said. “A big open fire, with every­thing cook­ing around it.”

Mid­dle East­ern dish­es such as hum­mus and Mo­roc­can tagine will fea­ture, along­side Asian, In­di­an and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al op­tions.

En­ter­tain­ment will run non-stop through­out the night, Mau­maire added. Tick­et sales, he said, are mov­ing quick­ly, with the Lux­u­ri­ous tier al­ready sold out and pre­mi­um tick­ets con­tin­u­ing to sell steadi­ly in the lead-up to Car­ni­val.

“We’re on track,” he said. “Peo­ple are ex­cit­ed.”

For Mau­maire, Lav­ish is less about prof­it and more about par­tic­i­pa­tion.

“Car­ni­val is cul­tur­al,” he said. “This ho­tel has been part of Trinidad for decades. It’s im­por­tant for us to re­spect that and be part of it.”