There is a dark cloud hanging over Carnival 2022.
The Prime Minister squarely addressed it at the commissioning of the Chatham Government Primary School on Monday.
He said, "I am sure half of you young people you were looking forward and asking me whether there is going to be a Carnival next year.
"Great. I would love to tell you there would be a Carnival next year. But what if (the) delta (variant) and the Carnival come together – what is going to happen?
“And what if half of the population is not vaccinated...?”
There might have been some who believed that come 2022 the covid19 pandemic would be a thing of the past, something to reflect on and possibly create engaging content around.
But it is clear that worldwide the fight against the pandemic is far from over.
Some Carnival stakeholders believe the way out of covid is through vaccination.
Newsday interviewed five major stakeholders – the National Carnival Commission (NCC), Pan Trinbago, Trinidad and Tobago Carnival Bands Association (TTCBA), Trinbago Unified Calypsonians' Organisation (TUCO) and the TT Promoters Association (TTPA).
For them, a Carnival 2022 is hinged on many factors but chief is TT’s vaccination process.
[caption id="attachment_908459" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The Lost Tribe Anansi at Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain, February 25, 2020 - JEFF K MAYERS[/caption]
Financial blow
Dr Rowley’s doubt about a Carnival next year comes as no surprise to Pan Trinbago president Beverley Ramsey-Moore.
While she remains hopeful that there will be one, safety is the top priority.
She said as a commissioner of the NCC, the festival’s guiding body has been monitoring the situation.
A second consecutive year without the festival is going to be a big blow to the organisation and the country as a whole. Carnival is a major source of revenue for the country: a news.gov.tt article said in 2018 Carnival visitors spent $318 million.
Ramsey-Moore said TT generated close to $1 billion in economic activity during Carnival.
She said that is why Pan Trinbago has been focusing on diversifying its revenue streams.
“That is one of the benefits out of this evil called covid. It has allowed us to change our direction.”
Pan Trinbago is an important organisation to TT, she said, that manages and works closely with over 300 bands in communities.
“Pan is community soul. It is the livelihood of some of our people. So we also have to inspire some of our people to also go into the direction that we are going.”
Given all that has happened with the pandemic, Ramsey-Moore said the organisation needed to do more than festivals and create other opportunities to become sustainable.
“Whilst we change the direction, we expect that NCC will continue to provide the support for special interest groups (SIGs) to continue to operate and do our work and monitor, and we are standing for the next Carnival.”
