PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

The year 2024 is set to be a year of cel­e­bra­tion for Air Com­mit­tee.

Next year rep­re­sents ten years since the brand was launched and its events team has since be­come the cul­ti­va­tors of some of the big­ger events in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Air Com­mit­tee’s co-di­rec­tor Adri­an Chan­dler ex­plained that the team would con­tin­ue to push to im­prove its prod­uct as it en­tered in­to its 10th year.

“It is with great pride that we re­flect on the in­cred­i­ble jour­ney we have em­barked up­on to­geth­er. For the past 10 years, Air Com­mit­tee has pushed bound­aries, shat­tered ex­pec­ta­tions, and I can cer­tain­ly say with pride that we have been a part of the process of re­defin­ing the art of cel­e­bra­tion,” Chan­dler said at Air Com­mit­tee’s tenth-an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion at Bri­an Lara’s res­i­dence on No­vem­ber 24.

But the year will al­so serve as an­oth­er step in the brand’s re­cov­ery from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“It’s def­i­nite­ly been an amaz­ing jour­ney and it’s had its ups and downs. We start­ed back in 2013/2014 and then as you know, 2020 in­to 2022, we went through COVID,” he said in an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian.

He ex­plained that the pan­dem­ic hit when he be­lieved the brand was about to reach its pin­na­cle.

“That was a very try­ing time for us, but out­side of that, we felt as though 2019 we were ac­tu­al­ly head­ing to­wards our peak, cli­max. Lo and be­hold, 2020 to 2022 you have COVID. So com­ing out of that now we’re start­ing to, I wouldn’t say sta­bilise, but get back in­to the swing of things,” said Chan­dler.

De­spite be­ing as­so­ci­at­ed with ma­jor events such as Out in South and Stink and Dut­ty, Chan­dler told the Busi­ness Guardian Car­ni­val 2023 proved to be a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge as the Air Com­mit­tee team sought to re­gain its mo­men­tum post-pan­dem­ic.

“Car­ni­val 2023 was a re­fresh­er. Be­ing away from it for that two-year pe­ri­od would have giv­en us some cold feet. But when I say cold feet, it is not that you were scared, but cold feet as you had to kind of re­mind your­self, hey, this is what I’m in­to. This is what it’s all about. So af­ter be­ing on the couch or on the bed for such a long time, you now have to re­mem­ber how much work it was,” said Chan­dler, “We were a lit­tle slow out of the blocks but I think we even­tu­al­ly we got back in­to the swing of things and look­ing for­ward, we’re re­al­ly ex­cit­ed about it. Es­pe­cial­ly 2024, As you know, it’s cel­e­brat­ing our ten-year an­niver­sary. It’s a mile­stone for us. We have a lot to look for­ward to, so very ex­cit­ed about that.”

Chan­dler ad­mit­ted that the team did take a size­able eco­nom­ic blow head­ing in­to Car­ni­val 2023 af­ter be­ing un­able to host Car­ni­val events on a large scale for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od. He said this meant the team had to dig in­to its re­serves to put on events which held up to their pre­vi­ous stan­dards.

“Peo­ple may not know be­cause they look on at an event and they tell them­selves some­times, they may see 5,000 or 6,000 peo­ple at an event and say to them­selves these pro­mot­ers score. But that is not re­al­ly the case at times. That’s be­cause the cost of pro­duc­tion has gone up. I mean, if you’re fa­mil­iar with our lev­el of pro­duc­tion we go all out,” said Chan­dler, who ex­plained his team looked at in­ter­na­tion­al events like To­mor­row­land and Coachel­la in an at­tempt to in­form their pro­duc­tions. As such the Air Com­mit­tee in­curred ma­jor costs.

“The big stages, the lights, the screens, you know, that type of fan­fare, the spe­cial ef­fects. It’s nev­er easy, right? So try­ing to nav­i­gate com­ing out of COVID, it has been dif­fi­cult. But at the same time, we don’t want to short­change the pa­tron, so we tried to ab­sorb some of those costs and still pro­vide them with the best ex­pe­ri­ence pos­si­ble,” he said.

“I don’t think you could be ful­ly pre­pared,” said Chan­dler, “They tell you save for a rainy day. Right? But they don’t tell you save for two rainy years. No­body could have an­tic­i­pat­ed that. We con­tin­ue to put our best foot for­ward, and pro­duce qual­i­ty events.We don’t sell our­selves short, and we don’t short­change the pa­trons. So it’s re­al­ly about the ex­pe­ri­ence and we will con­tin­ue to pro­vide that ex­pe­ri­ence to the pa­trons.”

Col­lab­o­ra­tion with Tribe

De­spite the chal­lenges faced, Air Com­mit­tee has al­ready sig­nalled plans to ex­pand and reimag­ine some of its events.

Chan­dler said, “We have some new things, some new events, two new events, and then we have Flair. This is some­thing new with Tribe. It’s an ul­tra-road ex­pe­ri­ence, an ul­tra VIP ex­pe­ri­ence in Tribe. So it’s where lux­u­ry and vibe col­lide. We’ve had a sec­tion with Tribe for quite a num­ber of years, and that sec­tion has now grown in­to a clus­ter. So it’s al­most like man­ag­ing our own band with­in the band. So we’re def­i­nite­ly ex­cit­ed about that,” said Chan­dler.

De­spite this de­vel­op­ment with Tribe and Stink and Dut­ty mov­ing from the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah ear­li­er this year, Chan­dler said Air Com­mit­tee would re­main com­mit­ted to its roots in South Trinidad.

He said, “I mean, that is where it all start­ed. My oth­er two busi­ness part­ner Shane (Baird) and Nicholas (Gill). They are both from San Fer­nan­do. I’m a town boy, a West boy. Out in South is our sig­na­ture event. So it all start­ed there. Stink and Dut­ty, which is now tran­si­tion­ing in­to S&D. We have oth­er part­ners in that Scorch, Voice and Il­lu­sions. That would have been birthed as well off of the heels of Dut­ty which was up on the road. That was a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween our­selves and Il­lu­sions and then Voice and Scorch, they had an event that they want­ed to do com­ing out of COVID. So you know that’s where that merged. You know, we try to do one or two lit­tle things in town, but South is def­i­nite­ly our main­stay.”