The part­ner­ship be­tween Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML) and Southex has been hailed as a defin­ing fac­tor be­hind the suc­cess of Chut­ney So­ca Monarch 2026, with or­gan­is­ers al­ready sig­nalling an ex­pand­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion for the year ahead.

Southex CEO George Singh, dur­ing a cour­tesy vis­it to GML’s Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, Ger­hard Pet­ti­er, pre­sent­ed copies of the of­fi­cial Chut­ney So­ca Monarch sou­venir mag­a­zine, a dig­i­tal-first pub­li­ca­tion cap­tur­ing the high­lights of the sea­son.

The pre­sen­ta­tion took place on April 15 at the Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed head of­fice in Port of Spain.

“The mag­a­zine cov­ers every sin­gle thing that hap­pened dur­ing the sea­son,” Singh said. “It has pic­tures of all the artists, ar­ti­cles, most of them from the Guardian and gives any­one an idea of every­thing that took place.”

The pub­li­ca­tion, re­leased on­line and ac­ces­si­ble free to the pub­lic, is

sup­port­ed by a lim­it­ed print run in­tend­ed pri­mar­i­ly for artists and key stake­hold­ers. Singh de­scribed it as both a his­tor­i­cal record and a strate­gic tool.

“A sou­venir mag­a­zine is some­thing very im­por­tant for peo­ple to have the mem­o­ry,” he not­ed. “It’s al­so some­thing you can re­fer to that tells you every­thing you want to know about what hap­pened in 2026.”

Be­yond doc­u­men­ta­tion, Singh un­der­scored the crit­i­cal role played by GML as of­fi­cial me­dia part­ner, cred­it­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s in­te­grat­ed mul­ti­me­dia cam­paign with el­e­vat­ing the brand and reach of this year’s event.

“The cam­paign that was done by GML was one of the best we have had, maybe since the in­cep­tion of Chut­ney So­ca Monarch,” he said. “Of all the events I saw dur­ing Car­ni­val, Chut­ney So­ca Monarch prob­a­bly had one of the most dy­nam­ic cam­paigns.”

He added that the col­lab­o­ra­tion de­liv­ered tan­gi­ble re­sults, con­tribut­ing to strong au­di­ence en­gage­ment across mul­ti­ple touch­points, in­clud­ing broad­cast, dig­i­tal and on-the-ground ac­ti­va­tions.

Among the in­no­va­tions high­light­ed were live screen­ings and strate­gic sched­ul­ing shifts, in­clud­ing a Port-of-Spain se­mi-fi­nal and a Sun­day stag­ing at Skin­ner Park, both of which drew sig­nif­i­cant crowds.

“We got one of the biggest crowds

we’ve had in more than ten years,” Singh said. “The changes worked, and the cam­paign am­pli­fied that suc­cess.”

Look­ing ahead, Singh con­firmed that plan­ning for Chut­ney So­ca Monarch 2027 is al­ready un­der­way, with GML ex­pect­ed to play an even greater role.

“Chut­ney So­ca Monarch is nev­er over. This mag­a­zine is re­al­ly the start of plan­ning for 2027,” he said. “We want to build on the re­la­tion­ship that GML and Southex have and find ways to im­prove even fur­ther.”

He al­so re­vealed dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing to for­malise a broad­er part­ner­ship frame­work be­tween the two en­ti­ties, ex­tend­ing be­yond Chut­ney So­ca Monarch to oth­er Southex events.

“We are look­ing to build a stronger, more con­crete part­ner­ship with GML not on­ly for Chut­ney So­ca Monarch, but for all the events that we are do­ing,” Singh said. “And of course, sign­ing on the dot­ted line for 2027 as ear­ly as pos­si­ble.”

The con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion sig­nals a strate­gic align­ment be­tween one of the coun­try’s lead­ing me­dia hous­es, Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed and a key play­er in T&T’s cul­tur­al and en­ter­tain­ment land­scape, Southex Pro­mo­tions, po­si­tion­ing both en­ti­ties for sus­tained im­pact in the Car­ni­val space.