NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Stakeholders of the Bahamas Carnival Experience have already begun to discuss whether the carnival will return to The Bahamas next year and how it will look.
Former Chairman and Marketing Spokesperson for the Bahamas Carnival Band Owners Association, Dario Tirelli told Eyewitness News that with regattas and Family Island festivals seeing their return, it is the hope of the carnival community that an event can be held in 2023 with plans already being set in motion.
The government has announced that Family Island festivals and Regattas will return this summer and restrictions have been rolled back for large gatherings and inter-island travel.
Tirelli said: “We need regattas. Regattas are an outside event and so we need to expand the economy of the country and entertainment is one of the biggest expansions of this economy, pure and simple.”
The last carnival was held in May 2019.
The 2020 Bahamas Carnival Experience, was set to take place on May 1 – 3, 2020, and was also set to reintroduce the songwriting and music masters competition for Bahamian artists.
However, organizers announced the postponement of the road march and related events on March 16, just one day after the country recorded its first confirmed case of COVID-19.
It was officially canceled on April 19, with organizers signalling that a new date was tentatively set for May 2021.
However, with sweeping COVID-19 waves over the past two years, there have been teetering restrictions on large gatherings.
It was the third year that Polantra Media Group had ownership and management for the event.
The inaugural Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival in 2015 cost the Christie administration $12.9 million.
The 2016 installment of the event cost $9.8 million, of which $8.1 million was subsidized by the government, according to The Bahamas National Festival Commission (BNFC).
The 2017 carnival report has still not been released.
The Minnis administration announced early in its term that it will not fund the carnival, and withdrew its support from the event in 2018.
But Tirelli said although the former administration opted out of financially supporting the events, it was a good opportunity for business people to get creative in how they raise capital for their business.
“For the last two years because of COVID, carnivals around the world like any other festival, whether it was a music festival or food festivals were canceled,” he continued.
“Definitely, we will have a carnival. We may have something close by where we will launch it as an outside event.”
