Trinidad Carnival 2025, the Mother of Caribbean Carnival, grew out of the people’s mocking of French masquerade balls on plantations in Spanish Trinidad. It blew up into a grand celebration of freedom when abolition arrived on August 1, 1838.
Trinidad Carnival 2025
Port of Spain, Trinidad
Trinidad Carnival 2025 is in Port of Spain, Trinidad on Monday-Tuesday, March 3-4, 2025. 🇹🇹
Trinidad Carnival
Trinidad Carnival is a pre-Lenten Carnival celebrated on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. That’s unusual because many countries where Britain was the last colonizer celebrate Carnival away from Lent.
Preparations begin six months ahead. Production and mas practice starts right after Christmas. Things get busy the month before, and build to a climax in the last week and weekend before Carnival Tuesday. To visit Trinidad Carnival, you should plan your trip the summer before.
Carnival is an Italian Catholic winter festival that was brought to the Americas by Spanish, Portuguese and French colonizers. In the colonial Americas, Carnival was the only time that slavers allowed Africans to celebrate their own traditions. When abolition arrived, Trinidad Carnival became a celebration of freedom.
Trinidad Carnival traditions spread across the Caribbean and around the world. It is the inspiration for New York City’s Labor Day Carnival and London’s Notting Hill Carnival.