With a month re­main­ing in the Car­ni­val 2026 sea­son, pa­trons at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain on Fri­day night were able to en­joy a free Car­ni­val con­cert that brought sev­er­al of the sea­son’s biggest per­form­ers to a pub­lic stage, of­fer­ing ac­cess to high-pro­file en­ter­tain­ment for those who may not be able to af­ford tick­et­ed events.

The show, held at the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage, drew a large and di­verse crowd and stood out for a line-up dom­i­nat­ed by fe­male artistes, re­flect­ing the sig­nif­i­cant role women con­tin­ue to play in shap­ing con­tem­po­rary Car­ni­val mu­sic. For many in at­ten­dance, the free ad­mis­sion meant the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence live per­for­mances by head­line acts who typ­i­cal­ly ap­pear at paid fetes dur­ing the sea­son.

Es­tab­lished so­ca stars Fay Ann Lyons, Na­dia Bat­son, Nailah Black­man, Patrice Roberts, De­stra Gar­cia and Nes­sa Prep­py led the pro­gramme, de­liv­er­ing en­er­getic sets that kept the au­di­ence en­gaged through­out the night. They were joined by fan favourites La­dy La­va and Jadel, whose per­for­mances res­onat­ed strong­ly with younger pa­trons and ca­su­al Car­ni­val-go­ers drawn to the open-air venue.

The night’s pro­gramme al­so high­light­ed the breadth of Car­ni­val mu­sic be­yond main­stream so­ca.

Chut­ney so­ca artistes Nisha B and pi­o­neer Dru­patee Ram­goon­ai were fea­tured, re­in­forc­ing the genre’s con­tin­ued pres­ence with­in the na­tion­al fes­ti­val, while ca­lyp­son­ian Ter­ri Lyons rep­re­sent­ed an art­form that re­mains cen­tral to Car­ni­val’s cul­tur­al foun­da­tion.

Male per­form­ers were al­so in­clud­ed, among them Lyrikal and Free­town Col­lec­tive, adding fur­ther va­ri­ety to the night’s en­ter­tain­ment.

Fri­day night’s turnout formed part of a wider pat­tern of in­creas­ing at­ten­dance at the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage and the near­by Fla­va Food Vil­lage as Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties in­ten­si­fy.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment not­ed grow­ing pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion at both venues, point­ing to the com­bi­na­tion of night­ly en­ter­tain­ment, food op­tions and ar­ti­san dis­plays as con­tribut­ing fac­tors.

The min­istry al­so high­light­ed Fri­day’s event as one of the larg­er crowds seen so far this sea­son and con­firmed that se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments were co­or­di­nat­ed by the min­istry in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC).

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, mea­sures were put in place to man­age crowd flow and en­sure the safe­ty of pa­trons, per­form­ers and staff.

The in­volve­ment of Car­ni­val De­vel­op­ment con­sul­tant Randy Glas­gow, NCC vice-chair­man Ke­van Gibbs and events man­ag­er Stephen Jones was al­so not­ed by the min­istry, with all three present at the venue on Fri­day night.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic were ad­vised that live streams from the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage are avail­able on se­lect­ed nights, pro­vid­ing an­oth­er op­tion for those un­able to at­tend in per­son.

The min­istry is point­ing to the Sa­van­nah-based Vil­lage as one of the few spaces where mem­bers of the pub­lic can ac­cess ma­jor Car­ni­val per­for­mances with­out cost, re­in­forc­ing its role as a cen­tral and in­clu­sive fea­ture of the sea­son.