Carnival in Jamaica: The $5-Billion Easter Egg
Hotels are booked, band camps are open, costume distribution has begun and the undeniable anticipation of mas is in the air: Carnival Week is upon us. In a few days, the streets of Kingston will be taken over by thousands of revelers in what is expected to be a Carnival Sunday the likes of which Jamaica has never seen.
But carnival wasn’t always this big. In fact, it would not be wildly inaccurate to describe its genesis as an unintended consequence of regional integration and one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded.
And so it began
Jamaica got its first taste of carnival when students from the Eastern Caribbean brought with them a love of feteing when the University of the West Indies opened at Mona. The loose celebrations eventually led to the birth of UWI Carnival in the 1950s, an event that continues today. Gradually interest spread throughout Kingston’s 'Golden Triangle' and many made annual trips to Trinidad and Tobago where carnival celebrations were the largest.
On September 12, 1988, however, Hurricane Gilbert made landfall. Today we would call it a ’superstorm’, but it was much more than that. Until 2005 Hurricane Gilbert was the most intense storm ever recorded. Prime Minister Edward Seaga likened its aftermath—the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in the month of September—to that of Hiroshima. It left USD1.7B (in today’s dollars) of destruction in its wake and the World Meteorological Organization even retired the use of the name the following year.
The damage left carnival lovers stranded. The timing of Jamaica’s general election in 1989 also weighed heavily on the decision of those who decided not to make the trek to Trinidad—Michael Ammar Jnr, Ricky Mahfood, and George Hugh among them. So, the three men formed the Oakridge Boys and gave Jamaica its first road march. 300 people marched from Manor Park to Hillel Academy that year, and the country has never looked back. The following year in 1990, Byron Lee, inspired by the Oakridge Boys, launched Jamaica Carnival. Suddenly there were two bands, a phenomenon that replicated. Since then bands have grown, merged, closed, reopened, and closed again.
Revelers in the first road march ‘tief a wine’ during the parade. (Photo: Inside Soca)
The first ‘truck on di road’ at the Oakridge Carnival in 1989. (Photo: Inside Soca)
The Explosion of Mas
The four major carnival bands for 2023: Xodus, Bacchanal, YardMas and GenXS Jamaica.
In 2023 there are more bands than ever including Bacchanal, Xodus, YardMas, GenXS Jamaica, Ocho Rios Carnival, and Kingston Carnival (formerly Downtown Carnival, which is now canceled). There are more fetes, too, with more than 80 parties scheduled for the season.
Launched in 2016, Xodus is an example of regional collaboration. Jamaica's Dream Entertainment and Trinidad's YUMA partnered to launch this premium band in 2016 and has since been growing in size and popularity. This year they have partnered with the 22-year-old Bacchanal Jamaica to combine their road marches.
YardMas is promising patrons “an ego-free, masquerader-focused, high-energy carnival experience”. They are a consortium of carnival brands such as BroadTail Design, ILoveSoca, and Fete Republic. The group has also partnered with Xaymaca, which is effectively non-operational, to provide dollar-for-dollar transfers to those who registered with Xaymaca in 2020.
Efforts to speak with directors from Xodus and YardMas were unsuccessful.
Kibwe McGann, director of GenXS Jamaica.
GenXS Jamaica (pronounced ‘genesis') is made up of four directors from the GenX carnival band in Miami alongside Marla Morrison, Kibwe McGann, and Keino Johnson in Jamaica. McGann, whose title is director, said the team is laser-focused on the reveler experience and is “ready to meet the moment”. They’ll be employing, directly or indirectly, more than 500 people and investing a “high, six-figure USD amount” to make sure they do.
“One of the most important things to us has to be the experience. I like to consider myself a carnival chaser and when you start to understand the pieces that are missing from a carnival experience in Jamaica, you want to fix that now that you’re one of the band owners”, he said.
“We want to provide an option that doesn’t come with the same failures of previous years… we’ve grown so accustomed to inefficient experiences that patrons now sort of expect it,” he continued.
One of the largest corporate sponsors, J Wray and Nephew, is also excited about the season. Through its brands, notably Campari, they are investing loudly in Jamaica’s carnival products.
Pavel Smith, the company's marketing manager says that “Campari’s goal is to continue to enhance the energetic and breathtaking Carnival experience Jamaicans and visitors look forward to annually”, adding that they are elated to be working with Xodus and YardMas to "to revolutionize Jamaica carnival with the aim of making it the one event that revealers globally will keep in their calendars."
More Room To Grow
Many see carnival as a drunken endurance test but, by economic activity, it is the largest entertainment season or festival in Jamaica. Government studies say that pre-pandemic the carnival season generated about $5b of economic activity; Dream Weekend clocks in at about $3b. In 2019, Jamaica welcomed 11,000 visitors for the Easter/Carnival season. Each visitor, the Ministry of Tourism estimated at the time, spent at least USD240 per day over an average stay of five days. Visitors not only take part in carnival activities; they patronize attractions, dine out and enjoy Kingston’s diverse nightlife. The stats from 2023 are expected to surpass that.
Some of the brands sponsoring ‘Carnival in Jamaica’ 2023.
Kamal Bankay, chair of the Carnival in Jamaica sub-committee.
Through its six-year-old ‘Carnival in Jamaica’ initiative, the Government is executing a strategy to maximize the potential of the season. The public/private initiative coordinates various agencies of the state and carnival organizers to enhance the experience and make carnival a national, marketable product. The ‘whole-of-government’ approach is led by the Tourism Linkages Network, a division of the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) charged with increasing the consumption of local goods and services.
Kamal Bankay, chair of the ‘Carnival in Jamaica’ sub-committee, explained that economic activity is measured by the dollars spent by both locals and tourists, during the carnival season.
“… For tourists that would include things major expenditures like accommodation, and food, Ultimately, though, transport to go from event to event, the clothes that you want to wear, your barber or hairdresser… all of these things contribute to the economic impact of the festival. So whether you’re local to Jamaica or a visitor for the season, that economic activity is measured”.
On the corporate side Smith says that J Wray and Nephew believes “in the business of carnival and understand that this product, like everything else that comes out of Jamaica, is unique - and as such, knew we had to invest in an effort to make it the best it can be,” when asked why the group has invested in the season.
For his part, McGann agrees that ‘Carnival in Jamaica’ has untapped potential.
“There’s no denying we have a massive carnival product. Jamaica is the only place in the carnival space that can even come close to rivaling Trinidad…. we have so much room to grow and this is a multi-billion-dollar industry that we haven’t really begun to tap into.
“Consider Jamaica’s tourism product and how many people visit Jamaica, and then you look back at Trinidad and realize that they only have about 3 major hotels. People literally move out of their houses, stay with other friends, and rent their own houses in Trinidad because they don’t have the tourism infrastructure that we have,” he said.
Still, Bankay wants to see more marketing dollars spent across the board to support the growth of the entertainment industry.
“We need to pump more marketing dollars into our entertainment product. We need to drive more awareness, locally and internationally, about our offerings and to make sure that Jamaica is considered the place to be for international celebrities,” he said.
With all bands reporting sold-out success, Sunday, April 16 is set to be one of (if not the largest) road marches Kingston has ever seen. The impact of ‘Carnival in Jamaica’ 2023 is still untold, but by all signs, the season should still reign supreme as the largest entertainment product measured by economic impact in the country.
