De­spite the State of Emer­gency (SoE) and po­lit­i­cal de­bates dom­i­nat­ing head­lines this Car­ni­val sea­son, hun­dreds of de­ter­mined par­ty­go­ers con­tin­ue to at­tend events. How­ev­er, or­gan­is­ers re­port that con­cerns about safe­ty are af­fect­ing some in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors un­cer­tain about trav­el­ling to T&T.

Scorch Ltd CEO Kwe­si “Hy­pa Hop­pa” Hop­kin­son not­ed so­cial me­dia posts where for­eign trav­ellers ques­tioned the safe­ty of at­tend­ing Car­ni­val amidst the SoE. Hop­kin­son even con­tact­ed Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture, and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell on these con­cerns. He em­pha­sised that while crime tends to con­cen­trate in Port-of-Spain—Car­ni­val’s epi­cen­tre—the fes­ti­val it­self is tra­di­tion­al­ly safe.

Scorch’s First Jam fete on New Year’s Day saw its high­est-ever at­ten­dance, which Hop­kin­son at­trib­uted to brand cred­i­bil­i­ty and be­ing the year’s first ma­jor event. He said young rev­ellers re­turn­ing to uni­ver­si­ties and year-end vis­i­tors seek­ing a Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence con­tributed to the turnout. De­spite con­cerns, he does not be­lieve the po­lit­i­cal cli­mate is sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect­ing at­ten­dance.

“So events are pret­ty safe. Trinida­di­ans will fête through rain and storm, but my con­cern is more about for­eign­ers com­ing in. There are oth­er con­trib­u­tors to con­sid­er like their coun­try’s econ­o­my, air­fare, and the mu­sic. How­ev­er, it seems Car­ni­val has been trend­ing up­ward over the last few years. We have to play it by ear with the sit­u­a­tion at hand, but I pre­dict sim­i­lar num­bers. Most events are still be­ing heav­i­ly con­sumed by for­eign­ers. Of those events that are sold out now, a lot is con­tributed by the at­ten­dance of the for­eign mar­ket.”

Mu­sic pro­duc­er An­son Sover­all, who man­ages so­ca songstress Nailah Black­man, shared sim­i­lar con­cerns when the SoE was first an­nounced. While prepar­ing for the Sokah Ori­gins con­cert, un­cer­tain­ty about cur­fews and zoned re­stric­tions ini­tial­ly hurt tick­et sales. How­ev­er, Gov­ern­ment as­sur­ances that the SoE was lim­it­ed to crime hotspots al­le­vi­at­ed lo­cal fears.

“From a lo­cal per­spec­tive, we are not feel­ing the ef­fects of it, but I def­i­nite­ly know, based on the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, be­cause they start­ed reach­ing out to us im­me­di­ate­ly, ask­ing, ‘What was go­ing on? Should I buy my tick­ets? I am not sure, I am wait­ing to see.’ So I think from a for­eign per­spec­tive, be­cause they are not sure, they can on­ly go with what main­stream is push­ing,” Sover­all said.

He not­ed that in­creased po­lice pres­ence dur­ing the SoE can en­hance safe­ty.

Mean­while, Zele Events host­ed its first event of the sea­son, Zele Cool­er, at Sound Forge in St James on Jan­u­ary 4. CEO Nari­ba Robin­son said pa­trons de­cid­ed to at­tend with­in 24 hours of the event, with many en­joy­ing them­selves de­spite the SoE.

“One of our af­fil­i­ates had their event on Sun­day morn­ing, which would have start­ed like six o’clock, and then you would have had oth­er events on the Sun­day evening. I know per­sons who would have at­tend­ed at least three events last week­end alone, so I do not think at the cur­rent mo­ment, the State of Emer­gency is af­fect­ing par­ty­go­ers at this time,” Robin­son said.

“With­out a cur­few, Tri­nis will al­ways find a way to par­ty. This Car­ni­val sea­son will be in­ter­est­ing, in terms of run­ning dur­ing an SoE, the crime sit­u­a­tion, and peo­ple’s fi­nances.”