Trinidad and Tobago promoters forming global carnival alliance

The Trinidad and Tobago Promoters Association (TTPA) is collaborating with promoters worldwide to form a global carnival alliance.

TTPA advocate Paige De Leon said 2025 is themed the Year of International Musical Co-operation.

Speaking at a media conference on January 15 at Queen’s Hall to discuss the upcoming TT Carnival and the association’s global stakeholder plan, De Leon said Caribbean and TT-style carnivals have carved out a unique economic space internationally, with infinite potential.

“What do we do as the premier Carnival practitioners? How do we harness, develop and intentionally grow and benefit from this movement?
"The belief is we have to get organised, take stock of what the product looks like now and what we want it to look like in ten-20 years, so our children have an industry that is ours to inherit.”

De Leon said the carnival industrial complex was the intricate system of interconnected businesses, cultural stakeholders, government bodies and global markets that profit from, influence and shape the commercialisation of Caribbean-style carnival events.

She said the global carnival alliance would be a practitioner-owned network of think tanks, specifically meant over the next year to create a framework for the sustainable, sensitive and culturally engaged development of the carnival industry.

“The pillars are event stakeholders and festival owners and creatives, with specific reference in this period to musicians and masmakers. The Caribbean artists' syndicate will host the views of the creatives, the Caribbean festival syndicate will harness the views of festival owners worldwide, the Caribbean producers' syndicate will take its cues from the genius event producers (who) continue to wow the world.”

She said it would not be hard to find audiences to participate in this movement, as there were already over 70 Caribbean-style festivals around the world.

Asked how intellectual property (IP) would form a part of the discussion, given that there was discussion about the erasure of the TT identity in carnival as it was democratised across the Caribbean, she said this would be part of the discussion.

“On one side of the fence, people think it should remain as TT Carnival, and on the other side, you have people who feel it can or is better served as a Caribbean thing. There are arguments on both sides.
"The question is, where we are today, can we really gatekeep it? Are we really in a position to afford IP on this? Look at how long it took to get the global indicator for the pan, look at how much work it was and how many arguments had to be made. Patenting something is one of the most onerous processes you have ever come across.

“If we want the numbers and the support, if we want that economic space to be properly defined, TT has 1.3 million people, so we have to figure out what we want and how we want to go about getting it. We’ve got to be terribly careful about how we express ourselves to those people that we need. TT Carnival, the Caribbean carnival is populated by visitors and we want them to keep coming. We have to share, and that’s the question: not if we share, but how?”

De Leon emphasised the alliance was a private-sector initiative. She said there was no head person or physical space.

She said promoters from all over the world were in support of the initiative and a memorandum of understanding would be developed eventually which would speak to people’s commitment to the think-tank process.

De Leon said people interested in joining the think tank could reach out to the TTPA, which would be reaching out to national bodies, musicians, event producers and managers and had reached out to carnival owners in 15 jurisdictions in the past two weeks.