Ven­dors at South Quay, Port-of-Spain cashed in on a steady flow of sales on bev­er­ages, snacks and food com­pared to Car­ni­val 2018.

How­ev­er, most of the items were not pur­chased by tourists who were the ven­dors’ biggest cus­tomers in years gone by.

The bulk of the sales on Car­ni­val Mon­day sur­pris­ing­ly came from mas­quer­aders and spec­ta­tors.

Just be­fore noon yes­ter­day, scores of spec­ta­tors who lined the pave­ment and a the few pa­trons seat­ed in the cov­ered stand at the South Quay judg­ing point wit­nessed the cross­ing of the first band—The Lost Tribe with its pre­sen­ta­tion Taj.

They were fol­lowed by colour­ful bands Pa­parazzi, Tribe and Ron­nie and Caro as their mas­quer­aders jumped and waved to Kees’ “Sa­van­nah Grass” and Machel, Bun­ji and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous’ “Famalay” while the po­lice kept a watch­ful eye on the cel­e­bra­tions.

Spec­ta­tor Jen­nifer Ab­bott said she was sur­prised at the pace at which the bands flowed.

“It was fast and fu­ri­ous. For a long time I had not seen the bands came so quick­ly. The bands would pass here af­ter lunch on Car­ni­val Mon­day. But we were treat­ed to an ear­ly pre­sen­ta­tion.”

Shel­ter­ing from the blis­ter­ing sun un­der a tent which was stocked with beers, soft drinks, hard liquor and an ar­ray of food, ven­dor Bet­ty Jack­son said she saw an in­crease in sales this year.

“Sales def­i­nite­ly picked up. My biggest cus­tomers were not tourists but mas­quer­aders, spec­ta­tors and even passers-by. It re­al­ly put a smile on my face. For the day on­ly two tourists pur­chased drinks from me.”

An­oth­er ven­dor, Lystra Richard, al­so ex­pressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments.

“I can’t com­plain sales have been good so far. I ex­pect things to im­prove to­mor­row. This in un­like pre­vi­ous years.”