If you follow my blog /twitter you will occasionally see my tweets/posts relating to carnival here and there. Carnival began as a way for the freed slaves to celebrate emancipation. It has evolved over the years from just a parade with costumes made from rags, into a showcase of splendor and creativity with bejeweled costumes, elaborate head pieces and makeup. For carnival activities I participate in the masquerade (aka mas) with my family and friends. I have been playing mas for about 10 years, prior that I participated in the carnival by playing the steel pan. Carnival is the time of year where my friends and I can just relax, enjoy ourselves, and most of the time mas is fun.
That is not to say that there have not been some bumps along the road. In the last 10 years my questionable mas experiences include:
- Receiving 2 costumes from a mas band by mistake and NONE of them fit. I had to go the mas camp on the actual carnival day and have a costume made from scratch.
- Costume falling apart at the mas camp, and not being offered any help to fix it.
- Last minute distribution of costumes. This was a recurring theme every year with one particular band.
Though I might have had poor experiences. There was always something to counteract the bad. If the costumes were delivered late, I could say well when I was on the road, I received lots of food and drink." Also I could think back to other years when things were better and move past the hiccup. Because I have experienced the GREAT side of mas, I always feel really bad for first time masqueraders, when I have a poor experience.
My family has had a lot of things to deal with this year. We decided that as a form of stress relief we would participate as masqueraders during the Notting Hill Carnival with Burrokeets UK mas band. Notting Hill Carnival with Burrokeets UK was definitely without a doubt the worst mas experience ever. In business I think a company should do one of 2 things either maintain a standard or exceed the current standard. As a band with 23 years experience, we expected a certain level of service from Burrokeets UK. Several things annoyed me about this mas experience.
Communication - the communication in relation to costume distribution was extremely poor. Sending me a message at 4pm on Saturday informing me that costume distribution would commence from 12pm - 8pm on the SAME day is poor business practice. Then to send another message at 7pm to say that due to circumstances beyond your control costumes cannot be picked up on said Saturday, is just ridiculous.
**please note that by the time the 7pm message came through, my group had left Notting Hill and arrived at the costume distribution point in Tottenham. Which is NOT short distance, by any means**
The costumes were all the wrong sizes, and communication as to how the issue would be rectified was none existent. At one point the lady in charge was not responding to messages or answering phone calls. There was no solution offered as to how the costume situation would be rectified.
The bartenders - I do not know if the persons on the drinks trucks were getting paid or they were volunteering, but they were hardly serving. What they did do was talk to random people in the crowd and it took ages to get drinks.
The food - now this is the be all, the end all and the wrap up of it all. The food Burrokeets UK served was spoiled. 23 years of experience and you serve spoiled food? There were 5 people in my group, who I played mas with and every dish of food was SPOILED. To add to that the entire band had spoiled food, there was no alternative. My group had the chicken meal, however the vegetarian meal was spoiled too.
It was a mess based on this experience if I was a first time mas player I would not play mas again. It was just a mess. The only positive is that my costume looked nice on the day.
Costume - "When the sun shines like jewels"
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