CARIFESTA XV to leave lasting legacy, says festival director

As the build-up to CARIFESTA XV continues, Festival Director and CEO of the National Cultural Foundation, Carol Roberts, has made one thing clear: The true measure of this Caribbean cultural celebration lies not only in the dazzling performances or the roaring applause, but in the lasting legacy it leaves behind.

“For every festival we host, we aim to leave the country better than we found it,” Roberts declared. “And that is important.”

Indeed, legacy was the heartbeat of her presentation, spanning infrastructure, training, community empowerment, and a cultural awakening that touches both heart and home.

With Barbados hosting CARIFESTA for the third time (previously in 1981 and 2017), Roberts noted that past editions have significantly shaped the island’s cultural development. “In 2017 . . . Queen’s Park had been rehabilitated and upgraded and so too had a number of schools and school halls across the country,” she recalled. “The whole ethos of how events are produced and the customer and patron experience at events has been lifted up.”

This year is no different. A cornerstone of the CARIFESTA XV legacy will be the newly established performing arts spaces, a long-awaited answer to a recurring challenge. “We will have purpose-built facilities for the arts and culture,” Roberts affirmed. Projects like the Richard Stoute Amphitheatre in the National Botanical Gardens at Waterford, St Michael, and the National Performing Arts Centre at Newton, Christ Church, promise to eliminate the “niggling problem” of cultural events being squeezed into sports venues or makeshift spaces.

But infrastructure is only part of the vision. The people are central to the CARIFESTA legacy, Roberts emphasised.

“Before anybody goes on stage, before an anthem is played . . . we trained over 370 people in technical production, lighting, sound and rigging,” she added. These individuals are now positioned not only to work locally, but “to offer their services abroad.”

This training speaks to a wider goal: sustainable professionalisation of the cultural sector. Roberts also highlighted an audit of venues island-wide — mapping each hall, stage, and proscenium arch — to ensure future programming can reach deep into communities long after the festival ends.

Legacy also means modernisation. CARIFESTA XV integrates AI, holograms, augmented reality, and other cutting-edge technologies for both special effects and audience mapping and data collection.

And, in a bold move for a festival held in the middle of the annual hurricane season, sustainability has been woven into every layer. “We’ve been working with the department for Sustainable Development Goals . . . to reduce waste — not just physical waste, but also digital and electronic waste,” said Roberts.

A photovoltaic farm at the CARIFESTA Village will power key equipment and serve as a symbol of green innovation in Caribbean cultural production.

The festival is also a generator of economic opportunities, particularly for small and micro-entrepreneurs. “We sent out a call for transportation providers. . . a guy in St Philip with a coach for 36 will have guaranteed work for ten days,” she said. “Seamstresses have to make 500 costumes for 500 stilt walkers.”

CARIFESTA, she insisted, must be evaluated not just by cost but by return on investment. It is an economic engine disguised as a cultural celebration — and the effects are already being felt.

Ultimately, Roberts positioned CARIFESTA as a mirror and amplifier of Caribbean identity.

“It allows us a moment in time to step back and look at ourselves . . . to love ourselves,” she said. “We all look alike, we all have similar ancestral DNA, and we all have a purpose . . . the potential to be world-class.”

She spoke of CARIFESTA as a vehicle for unity, rooted in resilience and shared creative spirit. “This is a place where others say, ‘I envy them’ — and this is a people who have used their God-given creativity to produce a fantastic festival.”

From artistic excellence to economic stimulation, and from professional training to deep cultural pride, CARIFESTA XV is poised to deliver far more than ten days of spectacle. “We deserve this,” said Roberts, with quiet conviction. “After years of climate change, economic anxiety, political disruption — as Bob [Marley] says, ‘wars and rumours of wars’ — this little part of the globe is doing something that will make the world go: ‘Wow.’”

And with legacy front and centre, that “wow” will echo long after the curtains close on August 31. (PR)