Lucas: Carnival must be done right

The Carnival 2018 media launch scheduled for December 29 has been postponed but new National Carnival Commission (NCC) chairman Colin Lucas said the postponement will not affect the NCC’s operations.

In a media release yesterday, the NCC reported the media launch, in which plans for the various aspects of Carnival 2018 were to be shared, “will now be held in the New Year, pending the confirmation of critical plans.” In the release, Lucas advised the public and the media they will be informed at the earliest possible date once confirmations have been made and apologised on behalf of the the NCC board for any inconvenience caused as a result of the change. Lucas told Newsday yesterday, because Carnival was early next year–February 12 and 13–urgency was driving the decision to have the media launch on December 29 and it was thought to be a good day.

He said they started to put things in place but in the course of doing that other things came up and they decided to postpone it.

“Let us not just do it fast but do it right.” He said the new date for the media launch will be announced over the course of this week.

Asked whether the postponement would affect NCC’s plans, Lucas responded the launch is ceremonial and NCC can have Carnival without it but they want to say to the public and the world the festival is on.

Lucas was appointed chairman in mid-November and succeeded Kenny De Silva. Asked how he felt about holding the reins, Lucas said the first hurdle is Carnival 2018. He explained that when “you step into a functionality like this you realise it is about more than Carnival Monday and Tuesday.”

“It is a culture-bound and culture-determined organisation really by law responsible for a whole lot more than Carnival,” he said.

Lucas said Carnival is less than two months away a nd the more lofty things he wants to tackle will be after the 2018 festival it is out of the way.

He said there are many things the NCC are tasked to do beyond the celebration itself which the general public is not aware of, including building the Carnival product and making it more international and more self-sustaining.

“We have a lot of work to do after Carnival too.”

Lucas expressed hope that some effort is made to ensure subsequent boards are installed a much longer time before Carnival as it was difficult to start near the end of November and Carnival is early February.

He said in this case it was unavoidable because of how things fell into place with the timeline, but he still hoped things would be done a little differently with the next board appointment.