Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion has se­cured a meet­ing with Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin to­mor­row at a time and lo­ca­tion that has not yet been dis­closed.

This meet­ing comes in the wake of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment that ma­jor sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties—in­clud­ing the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA), the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, and the Jean Pierre Com­plex—will no longer be avail­able for fetes as part of a wider crack­down on noise pol­lu­tion. Her an­nounce­ment has land­ed just months be­fore Car­ni­val 2026 (Feb­ru­ary 16 and 17), with many pro­mot­ers hav­ing al­ready booked events at these venues.

Pro­mot­ers who spoke to Guardian Me­dia ex­pressed con­cern about the tim­ing of the new pol­i­cy. While they sup­port ef­forts to re­duce noise pol­lu­tion, they say the re­stric­tions could have been im­ple­ment­ed for Car­ni­val 2027, giv­en the short time­line lead­ing in­to the up­com­ing sea­son.

Host­ing a fete at the BLCA can cost pro­mot­ers over $100,000. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that fees are cal­cu­lat­ed through the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) based on the num­ber of car parks re­quired for the event. Ac­cord­ing to a source, pro­mot­ers sim­ply in­di­cate how many car parks they need.

“So the fig­ure will range be­tween like, I think 40,000 all the way up to about 140,000. You could rent one car park, you could rent two, you could rent three, you could rent up to eight car parks, and then they will ba­si­cal­ly tab­u­late your cost,” the source told Guardian Me­dia anony­mous­ly.

An­oth­er source said pro­mot­ers paid ap­prox­i­mate­ly $109,000 to rent the BLCA, while the cost to use the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um was low­er, at around $57,000.

Pop­u­lar BLCA events in­clude Xpe­ri­ence, Stink & Dut­ty, and Out in South. At the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, events such as 1st JAM, Unite – Fete To­geth­er as One, and Break­fast Is are among those tra­di­tion­al­ly host­ed there.

Shel­don Stephen, own­er of the Lol­labee Group of Com­pa­nies and or­gan­is­er of Xpe­ri­ence the Equi­lib­ri­um — one of the largest fetes held at the BLCA — said he had been strug­gling to se­cure an al­ter­na­tive venue, as on­ly the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah could ac­com­mo­date a crowd of that size.

“And even there, for me, it’s not the right lay­out, be­cause the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah could prob­a­bly hold 15,000 peo­ple, but there’s no park­ing for 15,000 peo­ple,” Stephen said.

Stephen added that he would not be not de­terred from host­ing his event and would adapt even if it meant down­siz­ing. He not­ed that he had al­ready booked the BLCA for his 17 Jan­u­ary 2026 event, al­though no pay­ment had yet been made.

Events cu­ra­tor Jules So­bion, who leads Cae­sar's Army, al­so weighed in, say­ing the re­stric­tions would put pres­sure on pro­mot­ers and had cre­at­ed un­der­stand­able con­cern, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the dif­fi­cul­ty of find­ing new venues at short no­tice.

He said, how­ev­er, the Car­ni­val in­dus­try had a long his­to­ry of adapt­ing to chal­lenges.

“The de­gree to which in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als are be­ing asked to piv­ot is not some­thing that should not be tak­en light­ly; how­ev­er, I am a firm be­liev­er that with pas­sion for what you do, dif­fi­cult things are achiev­able. Through mean­ing­ful di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween all stake­hold­ers, we can, and will, find a way to put on a great show,” So­bion said.

On Tues­day, the Prime Min­is­ter ex­pand­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s clam­p­down on noise pol­lu­tion, or­der­ing an im­me­di­ate halt to fetes at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and the Jean Pierre Com­plex ex­cept dur­ing the de­fined Car­ni­val win­dow — from the Thurs­day be­fore Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day un­til the Sat­ur­day af­ter. She al­so stat­ed that all fetes and par­ties at Min­istry of Sport fa­cil­i­ties must be­gin no ear­li­er than 12 p.m. and end by 10 pm, and not­ed that the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion had been in­struct­ed to hire acoustic en­gi­neers to re­design sound sys­tems to re­duce noise and vi­bra­tions af­fect­ing near­by com­mu­ni­ties.