Trinidad Carnival 2011 and Jamaica Carnival 2011 Updates!

• YUMA has released the 2011 costume collection schedule--band members check your email or contact info@yumavibe.com!  Masqueraders IN Trinidad must pickup on the scheduled days for each section, and the mas camp is CLOSED Carnival Friday.  Masqueraders abroad can have someone pickup their costume on their behalf (see the email for documentation needed!) or pickup on Carnival Saturday, March 6, 2011 (please note the Mas Camp open/close TIMES!).

• Bacchanal Jamaica is now selling tickets to Jamaica Carnival's official opening night at Mas Camp, as well as season passes.  From Facebook: 

Tickets for Mas Camp are $1000 AT GATE / $800 PRESOLD - Season passes for all 9 are $12,000 - Appleton and Smirnoff: $1000 will get you 7 drink chits.  

They are also now on twitter!  @BacchanalJa

• D'Krewe has a Facebook photo album tour of the mas camp up so you can see both outside and in!

• DreamTeam Carnival announced which sections are NOT sold out:

• TRIBE announced TRIBE Ignite, an annual carnival Thursday (Thursday before carnival) fete:

• IslandPeople announced their fast-track pre-payment deadline for the full balance of costumes is Saturday, February 19th:

• HARTS reminds their masqueraders that the pre-payment deadline is (coincidentally) February 19th:

• Ronnie & Caro says the whole band will be wearing ORANGE on carnival Monday:

• Roam Mas is giving everyone a chance to win a free costume!

And I'm sure there's more, but I've been sick all weekend and need to rest my head for a back-to-gym session in the morning! :-)

Womanish--Roam Mas Now Doing Trinidad Carnival 2011 Costume Registration on Facebook! All Costumes Less Than $500USD!

Womanish

Remember Roam Mas? I blogged about them HERE. Well the Roam Mas website is now up!

BUT you don't even have to go that far to buy your costume:

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about...social networking at it's finest!

And the prices are now listed in USD too so no running over to OAnda to figure your currency exchange out!

But Roam Mas didn't stop there...when you click on a costume section to add to cart, you get a DISCOUNT off the already very affordable price, for buying online through Facebook...and there's a spot for reviews on the costume as well.

Powered by:

I actually saw this app before and thought it was an EXCELLENT idea for all the mas bands, and for anyone running a business who advertises anywhere on Facebook!  Had suggested it to YUMA in the past, and will now be setting up a storefront for myself to be able to take payments in the future (whether for a costume sale, a used book, or my tax and career/education planning services...etc.!).  I just tried to set mine up and should note that 1. you need a PayPal account (also free) and 2. it is best you establish a Facebook Page for your business then add the storefront, because it will ask you once you sign up if you would like to connect the store to an existing page, and one thing I have learned with online applications, when it asks you about taking an action, that is the easiest and best time to do it!

It's hard to know all the options available when it comes to Trinidad, because so many businesses still run without making full and efficient use of the Internet and the power of social networking, but that is why we have blogs, to collect the info in one place so those who come after don't have to seek and search like we the bloggers did! :) Enjoy!  I definitely hope they keep this trend going strong for 2012!

Trinidad Carnival 2011: Who to play mas with when you have less than $500 for costume?

Searching for Kaotic Carnival's 2011 Carnival page led me to Roam Mas's 2011 DJ for the road's post which sent me to Roam Mas's Facebook display of the 2011 theme, Womanish! Pics below are from their Facebook album. (His post showed up because his name is, also, Kaotic.)

But I already have one teensy tiny little gripe: I really need these Trinidad mas bands to master the social networking thing and stop making new obscurely-titled pages for everything...your ONE official page should have the NAME OF THE BAND as its header, with different albums ON THAT SAME PAGE for different years' presentations! It's like a scavenger hunt trying to track them down for 2011!


I mean think about it, if I don't know about your band, why would I already know your theme to look you up by theme instead of your name?  And when making a Facebook page it would seem to me it helps people doing random searches to put the words mas, carnival, or Trinidad carnival in your page name after your band's name, just to show up in more searches.  I'm just saying!


One bigger gripe...it is DECEMBER 12, 2010 and their official website looks like THIS?! 

No man fix up dat! I normally stay out of the whole mas band extreme critique because I generally only get into that up until the point I select a costume then I am pretty much done aside from noting which ones I come across that I like...but I love to the see the little guy get ahead, so I feel I should put this out there and maybe show how this looks from a customer's point of view, that's all! Especially as the Internet allows for word of mouth to spread oh so much faster...want to be available with your info for the masses, in all ways possible, as soon as possible!




That said, let's get on with what I liked enough about this group to quickly blog about them as soon as I found them.


1. The costumes are, to my eye, VERY creative and yet at such an affordable price! My top choices:
                  A. D'Bacchanalist (what can I say, I'm on my multicoloured vibe from now on this carnival season)
                  B. Midnight Oil (that blue is VIBRANT and would look GREAT next to my skin!)
                  C. Macafouchette (the colour combination just looks yummy, and while I am not into into skin toned costumes this carnival season, I would actually make an exception for this one! Pretty!)


2. The band's Facebook info states they DO take PayPal (and this is something else they may want to adjust for the future but it's no biggie: set up a PayPal account for ROAM MAS not that obscure name that's accepting PayPal's on behalf of the band. The more uniformity, the more professional it looks, especially when you are not a well-established band like TRIBE, Harts, D'Krewe...but definitely a small ting, much points for being able to take online payments without us having to share our credit card info with you, I LIKE THAT!)


3. The prices!  For less than $500 USD, and in some cases less than $400 USD, you can play mas in a great looking, creative costume!  I also love that the price of each costume is right there ON the picture, thank you for that I really dislike having to click around to several different parts of a site to get the full hundred!


4. They have a theme with explanations (I just love the little stories that accompany each section, I didn't see that at all with TRIBE for 2011, Harts neither! YUMA had it and I loved it!), and they emphasize that their costumes are made locally (I am not Trini so I don't feel I have to go out of my way to buy only locally made costumes, but I rate bands that go out of their way to improve local economy, cause I hear many costumes are made in China these days.)