Car­ni­val concierge ser­vices can be a life­saver.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly for those who have heavy sched­ules and can’t move around as they would like to ob­tain what they need so that they can be ready to hit the road on Mon­day and Tues­day.

Typ­i­cal­ly, Car­ni­val concierge ser­vices are usu­al­ly con­nect­ed to cos­tume and tick­et col­lec­tions and de­liv­er­ies.

These ser­vices have grown in pop­u­lar­i­ty, and no­to­ri­ety due to scams and in­con­sis­tent ser­vices, in the past decade.

How­ev­er, the Ivy Bar is of­fer­ing some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, pro­vid­ing hy­dra­tion ser­vices via a concierge IV hy­dra­tion and IV pop-up clin­ic.

This ser­vice is geared to­wards those who went right down un­til they lie down and find them­selves un­able to get back up to con­tin­ue as a re­sult.

“We are go­ing to do in­tra­venous hy­dra­tion, which is what most who are in­tox­i­cat­ed ex­pe­ri­ence,” said Karen Ma­son, the Unit­ed States-based co-founder of the Ivy Bar.

She ex­plained that her team had been look­ing at po­ten­tial busi­ness­es to ex­plore dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son and up­on recog­nis­ing the high amount of al­co­hol con­sumed and the con­tin­u­ous stream of events par­tic­u­lar­ly lat­er down in the sea­son, that their ser­vices may be need­ed.

“We were just sort of think­ing of busi­ness Ideas, I thought that this would be a good ser­vice to pro­vide for Car­ni­val,” said Ma­son.

As the name would sug­gest, the IVY Bar would see their cus­tomers feed flu­ids in­to their sys­tem via IV feeds to push along their re­cov­ery.

“We are go­ing to do in­tra­venous hy­dra­tion, which is what most who are in­tox­i­cat­ed ex­pe­ri­ence,” she ex­plained.

The Ivy Bar will be host­ing a pop-up clin­ic at Al­bion Court, where these ser­vices will be of­fered dur­ing Car­ni­val.

She added that such ser­vices have been avail­able in Trinidad for some time.

“There are a lot of IV hy­dra­tion bars, there are ac­tu­al­ly a few in Trinidad, that pro­vide re-hy­dra­tion ser­vices,” she said, but she ex­plained that what sets the Ivy Bar apart is that while this ser­vice is avail­able at oth­er lo­ca­tions in Trinidad, they are will­ing to come to you.

“We are go­ing to come to you, your home, your apart­ment, wher­ev­er you are,” she said.

The Ivy Bar al­so plans to set up a pop clin­ic at a con­ve­nient lo­ca­tion to ac­com­mo­date rev­ellers who re­quire re-hy­dra­tion.

She gave the as­sur­ance that the team that would man these ser­vices are in­deed trained pro­fes­sion­als.

“We are li­censed prac­ti­tion­ers. We have done emer­gency ser­vices and in­tra­venous ser­vices for years,” said Ma­son.

She how­ev­er warned that while the ser­vice is geared to­wards those who are heav­i­ly in­tox­i­cat­ed and de­hy­drat­ed as a re­sult, it was not a mir­a­cle cure for a hang­over but rather a source of re­lief for those who are look­ing to re­cov­er.

“It de­pends on how in­tox­i­cat­ed you are. The treat­ment is not a mag­i­cal cure. They just pro­vide hy­dra­tion and en­er­gy, but your liv­er is what metabolis­es the al­co­hol. So it de­pends on your own body’s me­tab­o­lism,” said Ma­son, “But for a lot of peo­ple who are sig­nif­i­cant­ly de­hy­drat­ed by al­co­hol, these peo­ple will feel some de­gree of re­lief based on their lev­el of in­tox­i­ca­tion.”

It is not the first time that hang­over re­lief has been mar­ket­ed dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son.

In Car­ni­val 2019, the fete patch was in­tro­duced to the pub­lic as an an­ti­dote to hang­overs.

It was cre­at­ed by Damien And Sara Gur­ley and Michael and Melanie Lara­cy. The patch is re­quired to be worn be­fore the con­sumer starts drink­ing al­co­hol and is to be worn for a 24-hour pe­ri­od to al­le­vi­ate any hang­over feel­ing the morn­ing af­ter the par­ty.

Since then, oth­er hy­dra­tion patch­es, meant to grant hang­over re­lief have hit the mar­ket.

How­ev­er the IV treat­ment is very much an af­ter-the-fact rem­e­dy com­pared to the patch, Ma­son said her treat­ment would af­fect the body soon­er.

“They are oral med­ica­tions, they take a while to be ab­sorbed in­to the body,” said Ma­son on the use of the patch ver­sus the use of IV hy­dra­tion.

She said the IV treat­ment would have vary­ing re­sults based on the amount of al­co­hol con­sumed and the state of de­hy­dra­tion.

“De­hy­drat­ed peo­ple who are sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­tox­i­cat­ed will feel bet­ter in about an hour,” she said.

The ser­vice is al­so not just for the de­hy­drat­ed or hun­gover, but for those who are low on en­er­gy af­ter a long day at work or for in­di­vid­u­als who may have just dis­em­barked a plane and have an event to at­tend short­ly there.

Ma­son ex­plained that the treat­ment would al­so aid in boost­ing en­er­gy so the cus­tomers can prop­er­ly en­joy their events.

The Ivy Bar cur­rent­ly of­fers two treat­ments; ‘The Hard Fete Treat­ment’ which is geared to­wards boost­ing en­er­gy ahead of ac­tiv­i­ties which would see cus­tomers fed B Com­plex, folic acid, mag­ne­sium and nor­mal saline in­tra­venous­ly

The hang­over re­cov­ery mix, en­ti­tled “The Vibe Treat­ment” al­so fea­tures B Com­plex, folic acid, mag­ne­sium and nor­mal saline but al­so will in­clude on­dansetron.

The “Hard Fete Treat­ment” costs $800 while “The Vibe Treat­ment” will set cus­tomers back $900.

Since an­nounc­ing the ser­vice on so­cial me­dia, Ma­son said there has been sig­nif­i­cant de­mand.

“The feed­back that we have got­ten is why have you guys not been here be­fore?” she said, “We could have pushed this a lot hard­er or faster.”

How­ev­er, hav­ing ar­rived in time for Car­ni­val week, the Ivy Bar team is still ex­pect­ing to do sig­nif­i­cant busi­ness as the events ramp up to­wards the tail end of the sea­son.