Soyi­ni Grey

How do you have a car­ni­val dur­ing a pan­dem­ic? For Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val’s man­age­ment team, it meant us­ing tech­nol­o­gy to al­low as many peo­ple, who want­ed to take part in the fes­ti­val to do so while re­main­ing apart from each oth­er.

This year, in­stead of a street pa­rade, filled with mas­quer­aders and mu­sic trucks, the roads were emp­ty. The crowds were redi­rect­ed to their homes, and the Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val web­site to watch pro­files of cos­tume de­sign­ers and so­ca stars, to learn to cook Caribbean foods or en­joy a show.

It has been dubbed by some as the world’s first dig­i­tal car­ni­val. But the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Car­ni­val Matthew Phillip is not so sure about that ti­tle.

“I nev­er ex­act­ly used the word, ‘Dig­i­tal Car­ni­val’... we didn’t have a Car­ni­val. It’s not Car­ni­val un­less you are on the streets. That’s a straight fact. What we did this year was cel­e­brate car­ni­val,” he says.

And chief with­in that man­date, to “cel­e­brate car­ni­val,” was putting a spot­light on the pi­o­neers of the Lon­don’s West In­di­an Car­ni­val, many of whom, he says are still alive.

“I think that they shouldn’t be able to walk the streets with­out be­ing mobbed be­cause every­body loves car­ni­val,” he says.

“But I want the pub­lic, the com­mu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate them as they’ve giv­en us some­thing amaz­ing!”

While most heed­ed the call to stay away, the car­ni­val jumbie in Michael Roberts was too strong for him to re­sist. When the road called he an­swered, and went vi­ral do­ing so.

A video of Roberts, in full cos­tume and filmed from above, chip­ping to Machel Mon­tano and Vy­bz Kar­tel’s col­lab­o­ra­tion for 2020 “Su­per So­ca,” was shared wide­ly on so­cial me­dia net­works from Tik Tok to Face­book and In­sta­gram.

Roberts says peo­ple rushed out of restau­rants and stores to greet him ask­ing where was the Car­ni­val.

“I am the car­ni­val!” he said.

Roberts says every­thing he did that day was guid­ed by his spir­it. His friend D’Jorn Fevri­er has sim­i­lar plans. The two met up on the road, nei­ther one know­ing what the oth­er had planned.

Fevri­er walked the route on Sun­day and Mon­day. His grand­moth­er owned the mas band Flamin­go Car­ni­val Arts. Grow­ing up sur­round­ed by mas mak­ing taught him prac­ti­cal in­no­va­tion. A skill he says lead him to a ca­reer in Ro­bot­ic En­gi­neer­ing, in­to a job with Dyson, straight out of uni­ver­si­ty.

Fer­vri­er, whose fam­i­ly is from St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent, is mar­ried to a Trinida­di­an. He says he knows some peo­ple think that car­ni­val is noth­ing more than a par­ty, and he ad­mits that for some that is all it ever would be, for him it runs deep­er.

“I had to re­mind my­self, you are here for every­thing that this has brought you. So you need to en­joy this mo­ment to the fullest. It could be my last car­ni­val,” he says.

For most, the hope is that by the time Not­ting Hill 2021 rolls around, the street pa­rade will be al­lowed to take place. Phillip says they start­ed plan­ning this year’s events from as ear­ly as May, and he is pleased with how every­thing turned out. Back at home, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion is al­ready look­ing to its fu­ture. It has al­ready start­ed meet­ing with stake­hold­ers to map the way for­ward for Trinidad Car­ni­val 2021. That pro­pos­al will be pre­sent­ed to the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts in two weeks.