Trini Style Carnival Find New Markets in Berlin, Tokyo, Jamaica And Hollywood
Trinidad and Tobago Carnival in a nutshell is labelled “the greatest show on earth”. It is a well known cliché known to many who play mas on a regular basis and who are familiar with T&T culture. Although this term is popular to many, it doesn't really describe Trinidad's Carnival at its core. A more accurate term capturing the revellery of Carnival Monday and Tuesday may just be “the world's greatest street party!”. But today as we look around the Carnival world we see a visible increase in the export of Trinidad Carnival to emerging Carnival markets.
Throughout the last two decades more Trinidad-Style Carnivals are evolving around the world. As Trinidad Carnival continue to export to foreign shores, we see more profit to local costume designers, carnival band leaders, vendors, soca artistes, event promoters in these new cities that are now home to Carnivals. We also see more promotion of the steelpan, jouvert, soca and calypso music, limbo and other key elements of a Trinidad style Caribbean Carnival that are non existent or not demanded in the latin style Carnaval. Most of these new Carnivals we see emerging are organised by Caribbean immigrants living in these foreign nations or their locals who have been to Trinidad Carnival and fallen in love with the world's greatest street party.
Today we see high interest in annual Trinidad style Caribbean Carnivals being held in Tokyo, Berlin, Hollywood and Virginia. Even in the reggae land Jamaica, the Jamaican government has invested in their own local Trinidad style Carnival as they refuse to be left out in the growing global Carnival market pie. Each of these relatively new Carnival cities now have an annual thriving Carnival that bring thousands of out of town masqueraders to their locations. Twenty years ago these new markets and Carnival could not have been declared in the same sentence. As popular Carnivals outside the Caribbean were only well known and thriving in mostly North American cities such as New York, Miami and Toronto. But today, masqueraders now have new destinations to play mas, soca artistes now have more markets for their music and these new Carnival cities now have an increase boost in tourism during their Carnival celebrations.
Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is more than 115 years old and will continue to be the Carnival mother and home to Carnival. As new Carnival markets gain more interest for new masqueraders the export of T&T Carnival will continue to reach more destinations. More key players and contributors will look towards Trini to copy the authentic vibe to export to their local markets. In a nutshell Trinidad Carnival will continue to gain momentum and stay relevant as Carnival lovers will always look towards Trinidad as the home of Carnival originality and authenticity
By Jason Diaz (StarBoy)
By Jason Diaz (StarBoy)
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