In the post-In­de­pen­dence his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Car­ni­val has been of­fi­cial­ly can­celled or post­poned on two oc­ca­sions, both for health rea­sons: the 1972 pre-Lenten fes­tiv­i­ties were pushed back to May be­cause of a po­lio out­break; in 2021 and 2022, COVID-19 to­tal­ly dis­rupt­ed the ma­jor el­e­ments of Car­ni­val—which are steel­pan, J’Ou­vert, the pa­rade of mas­quer­ade bands, both adults and kid­dies, fetes and tra­di­tion­al char­ac­ters.

The 2026 Car­ni­val al­so faced sig­nif­i­cant threats and un­cer­tain­ty.

While not specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed at Car­ni­val, the de­ci­sion by the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion to dou­ble the du­ties on rum, spir­its and beer, which was an­nounced by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo in the 2026 bud­get, cer­tain­ly strained the eco­nom­ics of the all-in­clu­sive fetes.

The pre-Car­ni­val rev­el­ry took an­oth­er blow on No­vem­ber 12, when Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar di­rect­ed that all fetes be stopped from tak­ing place at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA), which had de­vel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion as a pre­mi­um venue, as it host­ed some of this coun­try’s largest fetes in re­cent years

“I in­struct­ed that all fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my be stopped as the noise has be­come un­bear­able for res­i­dents. For far too long, the is­sue of noise pol­lu­tion and its neg­a­tive im­pact on com­mu­ni­ties has been ig­nored,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said then.

About a week lat­er, the T&T Prime Min­is­ter di­rect­ed that the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and Jean Pierre Com­plex could not be used as fete venues, ex­cept for the pe­ri­od from Thurs­day be­fore Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day un­til the Sat­ur­day af­ter.

The Gov­ern­ment’s re­stric­tions on state-con­trolled venues, for which there was no pri­or con­sul­ta­tion with key stake­hold­ers, have re­duced the num­ber of pre-Car­ni­val fetes held in the run up to next week’s cel­e­bra­tion. The role of the State was al­so ev­i­dent in the de­ci­sion by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um to stop spon­sor­ing five steel­band or­ches­tras.

Com­ing in­to 2026, there­fore, sev­er­al of the ma­jor Car­ni­val stake­hold­er groups were un­sure about the spir­it and mood of the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly in the con­text of the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion’s need to keep a tight rein on ex­pen­di­ture due to the pre­vail­ing eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment.

In the fourth quar­ter of 2025, Amer­i­can forces ex­e­cut­ed about a dozen sur­gi­cal strikes in the Caribbean, elim­i­nat­ing ves­sels and their oc­cu­pants, al­leged to be nar­co­traf­fick­ers, af­ter months of build­ing up the largest mil­i­tary force that had ever been as­sem­bled in the Caribbean re­gion.

On Jan­u­ary 3, the out­look for the 2026 Car­ni­val wors­ened when the US Gov­ern­ment cap­tured and re­moved Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro from of­fice.

The pres­ence of thou­sands of US troops and an ar­ma­da of mil­i­tary ves­sels in the re­gion would clear­ly have per­suad­ed thou­sands of po­ten­tial tourists to avoid the South­ern Caribbean, es­pe­cial­ly the is­lands clos­est to Venezuela.

The 2026 Car­ni­val ap­peared to have been un­der se­ri­ous threat from both in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal fac­tors.

Yet, here we are, three days be­fore J’Ou­vert, with the Busi­ness Guardian re­port­ing yes­ter­day that sev­er­al of the Port-of-Spain ho­tels were sold out for the up­com­ing week­end, thou­sands of lo­cals and vis­i­tors have en­joyed them­selves in fetes, both all-in­clu­sive and free, and all of the com­pe­ti­tions in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah have come off with­out a hitch.

De­spite all the pres­sure the fes­ti­val has faced, all of the ev­i­dence is point­ing to an­oth­er bumper Car­ni­val in the next few days, which should be free of any ma­jor in­ci­dents, if the po­lice’s as­ser­tions are to be be­lieved.