Sold Out Section Update

Ronnie & Caro
Calypso Fiesta (frontline)
Cock Fight (frontline)
Dimanche Gras (frontline)
Soca Monarch (Frontline)
Panorama (Frontline)

Harts
Gandara
Vayu (Male)
Zranka (pink)

Spice
Sea Salt (frontline)

Brian Mc Farlane
Kasena (Female)
Rashaida Bride (Female)
Hausa Dancers (Female)

For Masqueraders Across the Pond...

With all those beautiful feathered costumes it would do you all wise to invest in a bottle of Fletch Dry Powder, just in case it rains or for some unforeseen reason your feathers get wet (spilled drink, misting zone perhaps?). For those of you in the US I already linked several sites where you can purchase waterproofing powder online, now those masqueraders in the UK can also purchase the waterproofing powder online as well. Through research from one of the bloggers this site is selling the powder at the best price compared to others, even with shipping and handling included. The product is called Gateway Waterproofing Powder, sold at www.merlinarcherycentre.co.uk for £4.00

As for footwear, I have been getting request for cheap boots from masqueraders in the UK and here are a few sites that I have come across that have pretty decent flat boots at reasonable prices:

(click on the highlighted name to be taken to the website)

Faith
Boots from £10.00

Urban Outfitters
Boots from £19.99


Priceless Shoes
Boots from £2.00


Garage Shoes
Boots from £19.99


Linzi Shoes
Boots from £20.00


Desmazieres Shoes
Boots from £ 14.00


Wynsors
Boots from £12.95

New Look
Boots from £15.00

Remember that Afro Chic can spray any boot to match the colour of your costume so even black boots are fine. You may want to consult her regarding the material the boot is made of however; the website is bootsbyafrochic.com

Antilia Carnival

WHAT?: The premier "Sneak Peek" for Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival festival featuring a costume catwalk of themed carnival costume collections from rival carnival bands. Hosted by AJ Calloway & Vashtie Kola, live performances by soca sensation Rupee and other special guests.

WHEN?: Oct 30, 2008 at 8:00 PM EDT (7:00 PM DOORS)

WHERE?: Prince George Ballroom - New York, NY $100.00

HOW MUCH?: $100.00 (US) Inclusive of Premium Drinks & Hors D'oeuvres. Tickets can be bought online at Ticket Web.

See antilia.com/carnival for details.

D Harvard Section 2009

As we await patiently the launch of Trini Revellers website, private section with that band, D Harvard Section, has launched their offering with "Sweet T&T a Tribute to Trinidad and Tobago":

The sections are Play Yuhself (orange), Cyar Fraid Powder and Carib Country (blue). Since I am in a good mood today I am ONLY going to focus on the positive.

Play Yuhself is offering one of the cheapest frontline sections ever at $2395.00TT!! You cannot even get a Backline Babe costume at that price in most of the other bands. Cyar Fraid Powder is an interesting twist on the Fancy Sailor for the females who may want a sexy sailor costume and I do like the male costume very much. Carib Country is a simple, no frill costume for the ladies who don't want to fuss with a headpiece and just want something as if they were chilling on the beach at less than $2000.00TT. All these prices are "all inclusive" as per the website.

For more photos please visit D Harvard Section website.

Photo Source
www.dharvardsection.com

Gerad Kelly Shades of White

Today it is all about the kids as Gerad Kelly's website is also up and running; his 2009 Children's Presentation is SHADES OF WHITE:

Pretty costumes but imagine keeping that entire band clean all day!! Invest in Tide to Go parents.

Rosalind Gabriel's Website is up

I am loving the costumes for Rosalind Gabriel's kiddies portrayal of National Pride and one section even requires the girls to wear black knee high boots!

As for the adult's band I was expecting costumes on par with the kiddies, with lovely, towering backpacks and lots of fabric but from the drawings they remind me of Wayne Berkley circa 1995! Further judgment is reserved until I see the actual costumes on the road on Carnival Tuesday.

For drawings of both the Children and Adult's band or for more information visit Rosalind Gabriel's website.



PHOTO SOURCE:
www.rosalindgabriel.com

Question and Answer With the Band Leader

When it comes to keeping your masqueraders happy and protected what are the ratios of masqueraders to drinks trucks, music trucks and security?What about the process of deciding which performers to have on the road? Does that come down to a money thing or do bandleaders go by who are the most popular performers for the season and start the bidding war?

As far as drinks, for a bar to function reasonably well (as no bar is perfect.) a minimum ratio is 1 bar person per 50 patrons, but this also depends on how much available bar surface there is.In any event there will have to be a wait to get your drinks. It is just the logistics of it. Best we can do is minimize the wait. In some aspects the traditional carts function better, for some good reasons,less people sharing the same access area or bar surface. A Cart may may serve an average a 100 or so patrons, attended to by approx. 4 bar tenders or cart workers. That ratio is 1:25 which is very good. As well as most cart patrons can simply put there hand in their own carts and retrieve drinks .Self service is the quickest way. But with the complaints on the rise of congestion being worsened by so many additional trucks I feel that sooner or later the powers that be may restrict the number of of trucks Bands will be allowed.

In respect to who performs on the road, it is a little of all that you mentioned. Availability is I think the most important, and you also has to be careful of who you hire, because some bands are too popular and may cause an unnecessary mount of non masqueraders to invade, and stress the security, as what happened with Machel and Poison. I love HD but I wouldn't let them play on the road for me. So you want good consistent sound with an all round band, that has stamina, fair popularity, and lots of road experience. And Band nor sound system comes cheap. All you can do is try to give the people the best time they could have.
Thanks again , till next week
B.L.

In Production

Yesterday I paid an impromptu visit to Richard and Anthony's production house where they were diligently working on pieces for the sections Spangled Cotinga, Green Honeycreeper, Caged Canary and Hummingbird. I have to say I absolutely LOVE,LOVE,LOVE Caged Canary's frontline headpiece (which I tried on) it has got to be the most fantastic headpiece of all the costumes I have seen thus far for Carnival 2009. It is just gorgeous!!!

As for quality control, the costumes that I saw in production were all being crafted with meticulous detail to the prototype so at least those masqueraders in any of the aforementioned sections should not be worried of having their headpieces looking different to the original.

I was also able to try the tail on for Spangled Cotinga Frontline and it is very sturdy, the back piece is made with a wire base which is then attached to the front piece using hooks on the side of the belt. The tail is awesome !!! That visit was a well needed booster to the excitement for Carnival, I cannot WAIT to see my costume!

Vintage Tuesdays

Steelband Invaders wearing their instruments hung around their necks
at the beginning of the 1950’s.


Calypso tent, 1956.Top, 4th from the left, Mighty Sparrow

Today's Vintage Tuesday features the year 1956 with two articles, one featuring Carnival in San Fernando. To read online, click on the book below:

Or, download the articles HERE.

PHOTO SOURCE:
http://www.lameca.org

Legacy Band Launch Photos

You can check out the first photos of Legacy's launch of "Kingdom of the Dragon",their 2009 presentation on trinisoca.com:

Gallery 1

Gallery 2

Gallery 3

They got LOTS of photos.

I will reserve my comments for when I see the costumes in person or on the website for a better look, however THIS costume below, the red one, is a VERY close version of Spice's Melliot Blue frontline:



Spice - Melliot Blue

p.s. And do not try to educate me on the Meliot Blue/Spangled Cotinga similarities; both costumes were done by the SAME designers so it is impossible to plagiarize your own self!!! It would do those of you reading the blog for the first time wellto check the archives from inception in 2006, in fact from the last few months, to understand that I do not spout things from off the top of my head without being aware of the facts.

SOURCE:
www.trinisoca.com

Monday Question Time........

Another Monday.. another round of questions. You know the drill, leave a comment or send me an email with your question at trinicarnivaldiary@yahoo.com.

Panorama 2009

Pan Trinbago has announced the dates for Panorama 2009.

Preliminary competition is slated to begin on January 23rd with the judging of single bands followed by the period January 27th to February 3rd which will feature the judging of small, medium and large bands.

On February 8th the National semi-finals, aka "Savannah Party", will once again be held at the the Queen's Park Savannah with the grand finals of Panorama taking place on February 21st at the same venue.

Rosalind Gabriel ventures into adult mas

Renowned, award winning Kiddies Carnival Band Leader, Rosalind Gabriel, will be venturing into new territory as she launched an Adult Band for 2009. The band's presentation for 2009 is called "Native Land" and is comprised of 5 sections catering to masqueraders looking for "something different and a lot more cloth". Micheal Salickram of the Shiv Shakti Dancers is also involved in this Carnival venture.

Rosalind's kiddies band for 2009 will be playing "National Pride" and both adults and kiddies will be parading on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. For more information on the band you can visit the official website though it is not fully up and running as yet.

Footwear Finds

For the non-boots wearing masqueraders, I stumbled upon the perfect sneaker for Dreams!


Jessica Simpson Women's Even Sneaker - price $68.95
Buy at - Endless.com

And I am loving these for Natural Mystic as an alternative to chunky trainers, this costume needs footwear that is not bulky:

Vision Streetwear Women's Glitz Low Sneaker -$21.97
Buy at - Endless.com

And the deal of the day are these silver, sequined and rhinestone sneakers at $15.00! They look as if you would need to add a pair of gel in soles for extra comfort (so order one size bigger) but the price cannot be beat for sleek silver sneakers that need no extra embellishments:

Buy at - Newport News

So I know I am late....

But I am only now seeing Kaotic's new section "Untamed!".

And to tell you just HOW late I am, am I the only one who just realised that Kaotic's former Public Relations officer, Rene Holford, is no longer with the band and is playing with TRIBE (I won't tell you which section) ? Ms. Holford has joined a growing list of band affilaites who have absconded and are now playing with TRIBE!

SOURCE:
www.kaoticcarnival09.com

Genesis Website is Up...

Thanks to DQ who made the observation that Genesis changed their website address, it is now http://carnivalgenesis.com so please bookmark, note or update your links. I would have never known their website was up and running otherwise!!

I have to say the prices are not bad at all though some of the frontline options are a tad pricey they are in line with current pricing trends for frontlines in other bands unfortunately. I do like like their Dealers section MUCH better than the other one from that other band. The section Diamonds is gorgeous, love it, probably Nina's best costume to date. I also like Ice for some reason, in spite of the Snow Witch vibe I am getting for it.

Diamonds

Not bad Genesis, I can see a marked improvement in costume design over the years from this band and one thing you can say is that they certainly went outside the norm for some of the designs, and there is a marked absence of beads on the costumes!!

SOURCE
www.carnivalgenesis.com

Hmmmm .......

Spotted at Labor Day..

I am trying to put my finger on what is drawing my attention in that picture and I think I have it; those are another version on Island People's jeweled panties for Rays of Lights!!! Then, I thought to myself is that a squiggly tail coming out of the back of that frontline costume? hmmmm...!

What say you?

This Frontline H.O. is __________????

*Yawn*.. where is the excitement??

As this weekend bring the last of the band launches, in a VERY long Band Launching season, with Legacy's launch on Saturday we are still awaiting the websites of Trini Revellers,Masquerade and Genesis all of which seem to be "offline" at the moment. At this point I have no idea how to find Genesis or Masquerade's mas camp to go in and take a look in lieu of waiting on photos on the website for a close view as there is no information out there.

I have to admit that with the incredibly long list of band launches coming one behind the next after Island People both my excitement and interest waned considerably for the subsequent band launches. Sorry to say , but I am going through a period of utter boredom when it comes to band launches hence the reason why Brian Mc Farlane's launch on Saturday morning was such a welcome departure from the same old routine that I had been experiencing since the first weekend in July.

In fact as Carnival is approaching in just about 4 months I feel a general waning of excitment overall. The two big bands have not only launched but are completely SOLD OUT and save for a few sections gone in Harts none of the other bands are even close to selling out despite what we have been reading about "sections going fast". The trend these days seems to be a mas camp lime or bus limes to generate public interest in flagging Carnival bands. However, to be quite honest, I think the die hard masqueraders are already registered in the popular bands of their choice and the ones who the bands are waiting on now are those who are still not sure what band they want to play with anyway... who predicts that we will have several of the numerous Carnival bands barely selling out a couple sections come February? There are simply TOO MANY bands at this point competing for the same number of straggling masqueraders with the same variations of costumes, two bands even have the identical headpiece in different colours!

Ronnie & Caro
Elements
Kaotic
Evolution
Wee International
Pulse 8
Dream Team
Masquerade
Genesis
Trevor Wallace
Image Nation
Trini Revellers,
Spice
D Krewe.

Legacy, Brian Mc Farlane and Harts all have their devout masqueraders who will play with them regardless of what else is out there.

In addition many people overseas have expressed to me that the credit crunch and financial crisis is affecting them as well, and if not for having their ticket to Trinidad and costume already paid for they would not have bothered to make the trip for Carnival. I await to see how the fetes are affected by people visiting with less money to spend on the ever rising cost of parties.

Adding to the boredom factor is that I, along with several other masqueraders, have already checked the must have items off the list ,like footwear and makeup for instance ,though I am still working on complete Monday wear as I only have part of the ensemble. The problem I think is that the build up to Carnival started way too early this year, I am burnt out, by months and months of pre-band launching media and introduction launches followed swiftly by a series of non stop band launches all through July and August.. by September I did not want to go to any more, too tired!

So, to inject a shot of stimulation to the cooling Carnival fever this morning here is a little bit of a brain teaser for you: which Carnival Band touting the fact that they had a deadline to meet is rumoured to have not even made a deposit for paying their suppliers to start production on costumes?? And, on the flip side which Carnival Band has completed production for several sections ALREADY ??? I tell you, that is the difference between a newbie and a veteran in this business!!!

Your First Look At Dream Team....

More photos of the launch can be seen at www.trinisoca.com

WEBSITE AND MAS CAMP WILL BE OPEN WEDNESDAY 22ND OCTOBER 2008

Contact Info:
Email - info@dreamteamtnt.com
683-2413 or 756-2449

SOURCE:
www.trinisoca.com

Question and Answer With the Band Leader

I don't think that I got my question answered.. But correct me if i'm wrong!!What advise do you have for people that would like to get into the mas industry, say getting into designing costumes or doing costume sketches etc. (1st had drawing) who can we approch with our ideas??

Sorry but I answered this question twice already. Squeezle is right check the archives. But thanks for the question, if there is anything else I be glad to answer

Hello Bandleader,
I am unsure if this is an appropriate question or if you feel comfortable answering, but I am really interested in your perspective on the following issue.Since Mac Farlane's first production, there have been many comments that his work is simply a replica of Peter Minshall's; that his creations lack that something 'different'. Do you agree? What is your take on it?(and please explain)

I guess there is some truth in saying that there are similarities in some of Brian's work to Peter's. After all I guess Peter in away was a mentor to Brian. But I would certainly say it is unfair to assume he is not Peter's equal. Brian has many years of design and decorating under his belt, and is certainly qualified to carry the torch (so to speak.) He also has the talent to take it beyond the capability of Peter. Remember he has only been producing his own band about 5 years. His future is bright and full of possibilities. Once Brian does not make the same mistakes that Peter has, he can achieve anything, and certainly he is equal to, and is surpassing Peter.

Thanks again for another week.
B.L.