An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

A new dig­i­tal mar­ket­place is tar­get­ting the in­ter­sec­tion of en­ter­tain­ment, e-com­merce and fi­nan­cial tech­nol­o­gy, with co-founder An­gel Stew­art iden­ti­fy­ing for­eign ex­change con­straints, frag­ment­ed pay­ment sys­tems and lim­it­ed mar­ket ac­cess as op­por­tu­ni­ties to re­shape how the Caribbean’s cre­ative in­dus­tries do busi­ness.

The plat­form, launched ear­li­er in Oc­to­ber with a wider pub­lic roll­out planned,, aims to con­nect event tick­et­ing, cre­ative ser­vices, ven­dors and dig­i­tal pay­ments in one mar­ket­place, open­ing ad­di­tion­al com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties for pro­mot­ers, de­sign­ers, per­form­ers and oth­er busi­ness­es linked to Car­ni­val, fes­ti­vals and en­ter­tain­ment.

Stew­art out­lined the plat­form’s pay­ment in­fra­struc­ture is be­ing de­vel­oped with the re­gion’s par­tic­u­lar fi­nan­cial chal­lenges in mind, in­clud­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty con­sumers face ac­cess­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy for in­ter­na­tion­al trans­ac­tions. Its ca­pa­bil­i­ties in­clude split­ting pay­ments across mul­ti­ple prod­ucts and, po­ten­tial­ly, mul­ti­ple cred­it cards. At the same time, con­nec­tions with ma­jor lo­cal banks could sup­port pay­ment pro­cess­ing tai­lored to the cir­cum­stances of T&T.

“We’re mak­ing it eas­i­er for peo­ple to split pay­ments across mul­ti­ple prod­ucts,” Stew­art ex­plained in an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian. “And we’re mak­ing it eas­i­er for peo­ple to split pay­ments maybe across mul­ti­ple cred­it cards to fa­cil­i­tate the very re­al forex re­stric­tions that peo­ple are fac­ing right now.”

The ap­proach is in­tend­ed to help con­sumers com­plete pur­chas­es while pro­vid­ing busi­ness­es with a more ac­ces­si­ble route to cus­tomers at home and abroad. The plat­form’s founders al­so en­vis­age in­te­grat­ing pay­ment sys­tems used in dif­fer­ent mar­kets, al­low­ing in­ter­na­tion­al cus­tomers to trans­act through fa­mil­iar chan­nels.

For this coun­try, where ac­cess to for­eign ex­change has been a per­sis­tent con­cern for busi­ness­es and con­sumers, the de­vel­op­ment could of­fer an­oth­er av­enue for trans­ac­tions con­nect­ed to the en­ter­tain­ment and events sec­tor. How­ev­er, the plat­form’s abil­i­ty to ease those con­straints will de­pend on its pay­ment arrange­ments, par­tic­i­pat­ing fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and the for­eign cur­ren­cy avail­able to set­tle trans­ac­tions.

Stew­art and fel­low co-founder Avin­der Ram­per­sad are po­si­tion­ing C-Events as more than a tick­et­ing web­site. Their am­bi­tion is to cre­ate dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture that links the com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty sur­round­ing Caribbean ex­pe­ri­ences, from pur­chas­ing ad­mis­sion to sourc­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion, trans­porta­tion, make-up, hair styling and oth­er ser­vices.

Con­nect­ing com­merce

Ram­per­sad, founder of C-Events, not­ed the idea emerged from the frag­ment­ed way peo­ple cur­rent­ly or­gan­ise and pur­chase Caribbean ex­pe­ri­ences. A con­sumer might dis­cov­er an event on In­sta­gram, re­quest in­for­ma­tion through What­sApp, buy a tick­et through an­oth­er web­site and then arrange trans­porta­tion, ac­com­mo­da­tion and per­son­al ser­vices through sep­a­rate providers.

That process cre­ates fric­tion for cus­tomers and lim­its busi­ness­es’ abil­i­ty to reach peo­ple be­yond their ex­ist­ing net­works.

“Our am­bi­tion is to cre­ate a dig­i­tal mar­ket­place around the en­tire ex­pe­ri­ence,” Ram­per­sad said at the plat­form’s launch. “A place where some­one can dis­cov­er what is hap­pen­ing, book an event, find ser­vices, make pay­ments and plan their ex­pe­ri­ence.”

The mar­ket­place is in­tend­ed to con­nect the dif­fer­ent par­tic­i­pants in the cre­ative econ­o­my, in­clud­ing pro­mot­ers, per­form­ers, pro­duc­ers, de­sign­ers, pho­tog­ra­phers, cater­ers, make-up artists, hair styl­ists and trans­porta­tion and ac­com­mo­da­tion providers.

The com­mer­cial propo­si­tion ex­tends be­yond con­ve­nience. By bring­ing ser­vices to­geth­er, the founders hope to make it eas­i­er for small busi­ness­es to reach new cus­tomers, ac­cept dig­i­tal pay­ments and gen­er­ate trans­ac­tions out­side a sin­gle event or Car­ni­val sea­son.

For a pro­mot­er, the plat­form could pro­vide a route to cus­tomers be­yond the lo­cal mar­ket. For a cre­ative en­tre­pre­neur, it could of­fer greater vis­i­bil­i­ty and ac­cess to con­sumers plan­ning trips to T&T or oth­er Caribbean des­ti­na­tions.

Ram­per­sad high­light­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty is re­gion­al, re­flect­ing the reach of Car­ni­val, mu­sic and fes­ti­vals and the size of the Caribbean di­as­po­ra. Cus­tomers liv­ing in New York, Toron­to, Mi­a­mi, Lon­don and else­where could use the mar­ket­place to plan ex­pe­ri­ences in the re­gion.

The founders are bet­ting that dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture can help turn cul­tur­al in­ter­est in­to more mea­sur­able eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, con­nect­ing busi­ness­es that have tra­di­tion­al­ly op­er­at­ed through sep­a­rate net­works and pay­ment arrange­ments.

Pay­ments and forex

Stew­art’s ex­pe­ri­ence in tech­nol­o­gy and pay­ments in­formed the de­vel­op­ment of the plat­form. Through my­Car­ni­val­Bands, he gained ex­pe­ri­ence build­ing dig­i­tal ser­vices for the Car­ni­val in­dus­try, while AN­GL Pay ex­pand­ed his work in­to fi­nan­cial tech­nol­o­gy and e-com­merce.

He said the two ar­eas need­ed to be brought to­geth­er: dig­i­tal tools de­signed for the cre­ative sec­tor and pay­ment in­fra­struc­ture that al­lows busi­ness­es to trans­act more ef­fec­tive­ly.

C-Events is be­ing de­vel­oped to sup­port pay­ment op­tions suit­ed to cus­tomers in dif­fer­ent mar­kets. Stew­art says the plat­form could even­tu­al­ly con­nect with re­gion­al pay­ment sys­tems and ser­vices, in­clud­ing BIMP and CB­DC, as well as in­ter­na­tion­al op­tions that cus­tomers al­ready use.

“If you’re a pro­mot­er sell­ing tick­ets in the Unit­ed States, peo­ple might be able to use Zelle to pur­chase the tick­ets on­line,” he said. Cus­tomers in the Unit­ed King­dom could al­so be able to use lo­cal dig­i­tal pay­ment sys­tems.

The founders say these in­te­gra­tions form part of a wider plan to make the mar­ket­place work across bor­ders rather than con­fin­ing trans­ac­tions to one pay­ment method or ju­ris­dic­tion. They al­so in­tend to sup­port dig­i­tal wal­lets, with Ram­per­sad ex­plain­ing that cus­tomers pur­chas­ing tick­ets would be able to add them to Ap­ple Wal­let.

Stew­art ex­plained AN­GL Pay is work­ing with pay­ment tech­nol­o­gy part­ners, in­clud­ing Visa and Cy­ber­source, for which it is an au­tho­rised re­seller. The broad­er roadmap in­cludes ad­di­tion­al pay­ment chan­nels, faster ven­dor pay­outs, cash-based pay­ment op­tions through part­ner­ships such as Pay­wise and phys­i­cal kiosks to ex­tend ac­cess to com­mu­ni­ties where dig­i­tal ser­vices are less read­i­ly avail­able.

Pro­gres­sive in­tro­duc­tion

The for­eign ex­change com­po­nent is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant to T&T, where con­sumers have faced re­stric­tions on ac­cess to US dol­lars for over­seas pur­chas­es. Stew­art says the plat­form has been de­signed to ac­count for some of the re­gion’s spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances and that con­nec­tions to ma­jor lo­cal banks could sup­port how trans­ac­tions are processed.

He out­lined a sys­tem un­der which a card trans­ac­tion orig­i­nat­ing in Trinidad would be charged in US$80 in­cre­ments, but the ex­pla­na­tion pro­vid­ed in the in­ter­view end­ed be­fore the full mech­a­nism was de­scribed. The pre­cise op­er­at­ing mod­el, in­clud­ing how trans­ac­tions would be set­tled and how for­eign cur­ren­cy would be sourced, there­fore re­mains un­clear.

That dis­tinc­tion mat­ters. A plat­form can im­prove pay­ment ac­cess and the way pur­chas­es are processed, but it can­not by it­self in­crease the sup­ply of for­eign ex­change avail­able to the bank­ing sys­tem. The prac­ti­cal im­pact will de­pend on the arrange­ments with banks and pay­ment providers, the cur­ren­cies ac­cept­ed and the set­tle­ment process­es be­hind each trans­ac­tion.

For ven­dors, the oth­er key con­sid­er­a­tion is how quick­ly funds from sales be­come avail­able. Faster pay­outs and sim­pler pay­ment ac­cep­tance could im­prove cash flow, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small busi­ness­es that must pay sup­pli­ers and meet op­er­at­ing costs be­fore an event takes place.

Build­ing the Or­ange Econ­o­my

Stew­art al­so sees C-Events as a way to help for­malise and grow the Caribbean’s cre­ative econ­o­my, some­times re­ferred to as the Or­ange Econ­o­my. He ar­gues that cul­tur­al in­dus­tries need the same at­ten­tion to in­fra­struc­ture and com­mer­cial sys­tems as oth­er sec­tors if they are to ex­pand be­yond their cur­rent reach.

He points to the chal­lenges fac­ing small­er en­tre­pre­neurs who may have the tal­ent to build suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es but lack ac­cess to cus­tomers, fi­nance or dis­tri­b­u­tion.

The founders in­tend to de­vel­op the plat­form along­side pro­mot­ers, venues, fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, tech­nol­o­gy part­ners, brands, me­dia or­gan­i­sa­tions and the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty. Plans in­clude ded­i­cat­ed artist and mu­sic ex­pe­ri­ences, cu­rat­ed cre­ative sto­ries and ex­plo­ration of fund­ing mech­a­nisms to sup­port busi­ness growth.

Stew­art cit­ed Guyana’s in­vest­ment in its cre­ative in­dus­tries as an ex­am­ple of the grow­ing re­gion­al in­ter­est in the sec­tor. Guyana’s 2026 na­tion­al bud­get in­cludes G$3.7 bil­lion, ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$17.7 mil­lion, to sup­port the for­mal­i­sa­tion and growth of its Or­ange Econ­o­my.

For gov­ern­ments across the Caribbean, a more con­nect­ed dig­i­tal mar­ket­place could al­so make it eas­i­er to iden­ti­fy par­tic­i­pat­ing busi­ness­es and un­der­stand the trans­ac­tions tak­ing place with­in the cre­ative sec­tor. That in­for­ma­tion could sup­port bet­ter-in­formed de­ci­sions on as­sis­tance and de­vel­op­ment, al­though the ex­tent of any such ben­e­fits would de­pend on how the plat­form col­lects, or­gan­is­es and makes da­ta avail­able.

C-Events is start­ing in T&T with an ini­tial se­lec­tion of events and ven­dors, with a wider pub­lic roll­out planned for the fol­low­ing week. The founders ex­pect the plat­form to ex­pand through ad­di­tion­al events, ser­vices, part­ner­ships and pay­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Ram­per­sad stat­ed the tim­ing re­flects chang­ing con­sumer ex­pec­ta­tions and the rapid de­vel­op­ment of dig­i­tal com­merce in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Caribbean cre­ative busi­ness­es in­creas­ing­ly com­pete for the at­ten­tion of cus­tomers ac­cus­tomed to in­te­grat­ed on­line ser­vices, dig­i­tal wal­lets and straight­for­ward book­ing sys­tems.

For C-Events, the chal­lenge is to trans­late that ex­pec­ta­tion in­to a mar­ket­place that works for both in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors and lo­cal con­sumers, while ac­com­mo­dat­ing the fi­nan­cial re­al­i­ties of the re­gion.

The longer-term am­bi­tion is to con­nect Caribbean cre­ators, busi­ness­es, au­di­ences and ex­pe­ri­ences across bor­ders.