PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

With an es­ti­mat­ed 100,000 peo­ple set to lose work re­lat­ed to Car­ni­val events, en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try stake­hold­ers are ques­tion­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to ban the use of Ude­cott-op­er­at­ed venues for Car­ni­val fetes. They called the move a “death knell” to the coun­try’s en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try.

In a press re­lease en­ti­tled Death of Car­ni­val En­ter­tain­ment and Tourism, Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA), Robert Thomp­son, asked, “What is the re­al in­tent be­hind this move?”

The as­so­ci­a­tion con­demned the ban, de­scrib­ing it as “a de­struc­tive and short-sight­ed de­ci­sion that threat­ens to crip­ple the coun­try’s tourism and en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­tries.”

Yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter took to so­cial me­dia, X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) an­nounced that she had in­struct­ed the im­me­di­ate ban on fetes be­ing host­ed at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my. She al­so an­nounced a move to strength­en noise pol­lu­tion laws and her in­ten­tion to reg­u­late mu­sic trucks and bars.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, “Tourism, en­ter­tain­ment, and cul­ture stake­hold­ers with­in the TTPA have ex­pressed shock and dis­may at the an­nounce­ment, which takes im­me­di­ate ef­fect less than 100 days be­fore Car­ni­val 2026. Many pro­mot­ers who had al­ready re­ceived ap­proval to use the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my, the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, and oth­er key venues were in­formed this week that their per­mis­sions had been re­voked.”

While the TTPA re­ferred to sev­er­al oth­er Ude­cott-con­trolled venues, of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day that the state agency was on­ly fo­cused on the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um and would deal with oth­er venues on a case-by-case ba­sis. Guardian Me­dia reached out to the TTPA for clar­i­fi­ca­tion and they point­ed to a news re­port which said oth­er Ude­cott premis­es will al­so be banned from use.

In its state­ment, the as­so­ci­a­tion said the de­ci­sion has placed the in­dus­try un­der fur­ther strain, as sev­er­al pro­mot­ers had al­ready booked these venues and be­gun ad­ver­tis­ing and bud­get­ing for events.

“For all those af­fect­ed, tick­ets have been sold, venues ad­ver­tised, and pa­trons have made trav­el and ac­com­mo­da­tion plans to align with con­firmed events,” the re­lease added. “The TTPA is ask­ing, How is this ben­e­fi­cial to the coun­try as a whole?”

“The re­moval of venues—in­clud­ing the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my, the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, and In­vaders Bay—from the al­ready lim­it­ed pool has left more than twen­ty of the largest Car­ni­val events with­out a home and with far too few op­tions to ac­com­mo­date large-scale pro­duc­tions. The im­pact of this de­ci­sion, now be­ing at­trib­uted to noise pol­lu­tion, is sim­ple to quan­ti­fy.”

The TTPA said, “This at­tack on the cul­ture of Car­ni­val and events is both ill-con­sid­ered and dam­ag­ing. Such chaot­ic, last-minute ob­struc­tion of le­git­i­mate busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty could eas­i­ly be­come the death knell for the en­ter­tain­ment econ­o­my. Con­cerns about noise pol­lu­tion are valid but, as with all things, must be bal­anced against eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and stim­u­la­tion—both of which the coun­try des­per­ate­ly needs right now.”

The state­ment con­tin­ued, “Events em­ploy over 100,000 peo­ple di­rect­ly dur­ing the two-month Car­ni­val sea­son, across sec­tors such as artistes, mu­si­cians, sound tech­ni­cians, make-up artists, hair­dressers, cater­ers, clean­ers, se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel, in­fra­struc­ture firms, jour­nal­ists, sound en­gi­neers, cloth­ing de­sign­ers, lo­gis­tics ex­perts, DJs, and con­tent cre­ators. In­di­rect­ly, air­lines, ho­tels, su­per­mar­kets, restau­rants, car-rental com­pa­nies, phar­ma­cies, taxi dri­vers, and bou­tiques all re­ly on event pro­duc­ers to gen­er­ate busi­ness.”

The TTPA ar­gued that the de­ci­sion would fur­ther wors­en the un­em­ploy­ment sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try while cre­at­ing a ma­jor hur­dle for T&T’s biggest tourism event, at a time when for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion is para­mount.

“The re­moval of these venues will force many events to cease, fur­ther deep­en­ing the un­em­ploy­ment cri­sis fac­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go and di­rect­ly re­duc­ing the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to earn for­eign ex­change—some­thing event pro­duc­ers con­sis­tent­ly de­liv­er,” the re­lease said.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so not­ed that the de­ci­sion, com­ing on the heels of the in­crease in the cost of al­co­hol an­nounced in the na­tion­al bud­get, is an­oth­er blow to the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion views this as yet an­oth­er top-down de­ci­sion made with­out con­sul­ta­tion with the sec­tor, and one that dis­man­tles the en­ter­tain­ment econ­o­my in Trinidad and To­ba­go—known glob­al­ly as the Mec­ca of Car­ni­val. This move, cou­pled with the re­cent in­crease in the cost of al­co­hol, has al­ready had a cat­a­stroph­ic im­pact on mas bands, bars, night­clubs, event pro­duc­ers, al­co­hol dis­trib­u­tors, and oth­er en­tre­pre­neurs who re­ly on the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try. Many are now be­ing forced to con­sid­er clo­sures, can­cel­la­tions, con­trac­tion of op­er­a­tions, and job cuts,” it added.

Ear­li­er this year, the as­so­ci­a­tion re­quest­ed a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she an­nounced plans at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress meet­ing to ad­just dance­hall li­cences to in­clude cut-off times for pub­lic events and to in­crease the drink­ing age to 21.

Guardian Me­dia was told no con­sul­ta­tion meet­ing was held with the group de­spite that re­quest.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said it was not dis­miss­ing con­cerns about noise pol­lu­tion but de­scribed the move as “a ret­ro­grade step” that un­der­mines one of the na­tion’s most im­por­tant non-en­er­gy rev­enue sec­tors—es­pe­cial­ly one al­ready af­fect­ed by glob­al eco­nom­ic shifts, re­source lim­i­ta­tions, and trade chal­lenges with Cari­com neigh­bours.

For Car­ni­val 2025, the Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion had an­tic­i­pat­ed the stag­ing of be­tween 300 and 400 fetes for the sea­son.