Nigel Teles­ford

Car­ni­val 2025 will be an ex­pe­ri­ence like no oth­er and the records will show that the mag­ic of rev­el­ry in uni­ty of­fi­cial­ly be­gan at Xpe­ri­ence Fete last Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

The Lol­labee Group, BH En­ter­tain­ment, Aaron Kalicha­ran, Event Artistry, 107 Events and thou­sands of fun-lov­ing pa­trons trans­formed the back of the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in­to a sea of white with pure en­joy­ment and fes­tiv­i­ty em­a­nat­ing from a 250-foot wide stage. Be­jew­elled and adorned with as­sort­ed lights, wa­ter­falls, sig­nage and screens, the “Tri­dent” theme was ful­filled by the struc­ture, ameni­ties, lay­out, decor and ser­vice providers and en­hanced by the depth of qual­i­ty en­ter­tain­ment.

From Tevin Hart­man’s open­er just be­fore 4 am, through the A-Team Band’s Ker­lz, ap­pear­ances by Kris Kennedy, Bitts, Ani­ka Berry, Nishard M, Jadel, Dev, DJ Ana, Col­lege Boy Jesse, Blac­ka Dan, Wadicks, Nu­tron and DJ Mervyn filled the venue with bless­ings and good vibes as pa­trons poured in­to the VIP en­trance.

MC Whit­ney Hus­bands in­tro­duced Patrice Roberts at 5.30 am and the So­ca Queen an­nounced the ris­ing sun with a blaz­ing set and a fire­works dis­play ac­com­pa­ny­ing her en­trance.

Mul­ti­ple Groovy So­ca Monarch win­ner, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter then called all hands and rags to at­ten­tion around 5.45 am be­fore Chut­ney Em­per­or Ravi B and pop­u­lar DJ-turned-artiste and D All Starz vo­cal­ist An­dre Dong splashed in­to the gold­en hour as DJ Elon pre­pared the way for the mas­ters of the morn­ing.

The Mu­sic Boss, Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine dove in first af­ter Car­ni­val Cat­walk pro­duc­er and en­ter­tain­er Jerome “Rome” Prescil­la’s pos­i­tive heat check and in­tro­duc­tion and pre­ced­ed The So­ca Boss, Iw­er George and the man who mashed up the mas­sive crowd in less than a minute, Ken Mar­lon Charles. Shal made way for Na­dia Bat­son and DJ Elon re­turned to cue the ex­u­ber­ant prime-time deep-dive from San Juan-na­tive, Aaron “Voice” St Louis.

Voice re­moved built-up frus­tra­tion, stress and con­ster­na­tion with nine sim­ple so­ca songs in 25 min­utes. No sim­ple feat to fol­low such a tidal wave, but DJ Mar­cus Williams and Dr Do­minic were up to the task and Guardian Me­dia pre­sen­ter and pro­duc­er An­cil “Blaze” Isaac was pumped and ready to in­tro­duce the clos­ing slate of acts.

Led by vi­ral sen­sa­tion, La­dy La­va and fea­tur­ing Full Blown, Yung Bred­da, Nailah Black­man and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous, it was left to the rag­ga so­ca gen­er­al and Road March fron­trun­ner Bun­ji Gar­lin to close the pro­ceed­ings off right and despatch the crowds home­ward. Fay Ann Lyons dis­played her fash­ion-for­ward swag and sex ap­peal in a form-fit­ting, Mon­day wear-es­que Rogue-brand­ed en­sem­ble, com­plete with knee-high stud­ded boots.

Xpe­ri­ence Fete’s Lo­gis­tics, Sound, En­ter­tain­ment, Tick­et­ing, Pro­duc­tion and Pro­mo­tions Di­rec­tor, Ben­ny Hatem breathed a sigh of re­lief that the long night was fi­nal­ly over and thanked the team of event man­agers and ser­vice providers.

“Xpe­ri­ence marks the re­al start of Car­ni­val! It’s when the en­er­gy ig­nites, and peo­ple are ready to let loose and em­brace the sea­son,” he said.

“This amaz­ing Xpe­ri­ence wouldn’t be pos­si­ble with­out the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port of our in­cred­i­ble pa­trons, our team that brings it all to­geth­er and the ded­i­cat­ed au­thor­i­ties such as the TTPS and Fire Ser­vices who en­sure it all runs smooth­ly and in­ci­dent-free! We will all hope to get some rest and look for­ward to stag­ing Mega on Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 7.”