Trinidad Carnival Videos
Trinidad Carnival is the source: mas, soca, steel pan and J'ouvert as the rest of the world learned them.
Trinidad Carnival takes over Port of Spain and the whole of Trinidad and Tobago on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. The season builds for weeks through fetes, panorama and calypso, then breaks open at J'ouvert before dawn on Carnival Monday, when the road fills with paint, mud and oil to the sound of music trucks. By Tuesday the costumed bands cross the stage in full pretty mas. Everything you see on this page was filmed on the road in Trinidad and posted by the people who were there.
Trinidad · Trinidad and Tobago
When is Trinidad Carnival 2027?
Trinidad 2027 runs 8–9 February 2027. J'Ouvert opens it before dawn on Monday 8 February 2027, and the main parade follows on Tuesday 9 February 2027.
- Parade days
- 8–9 February 2027
- J'Ouvert
- Monday 8 February 2027
- Season
- 2027
Carnival Monday is 8 February 2027 and Carnival Tuesday is 9 February 2027, with Ash Wednesday on 10 February. J'ouvert runs before dawn on Carnival Monday.
Trinidad Carnival dates by year
Dates confirmed against the official schedule. Official schedule
Trinidad Carnival information
Verified public information about this carnival, organised by MasLife World TV. Last verified September 5, 2026.
What Trinidad Carnival is
Trinidad Carnival is the carnival every other Caribbean carnival descends from — the one Trinidadians call the Greatest Show on Earth. It is a pre-Lenten festival: the season opens just after Christmas and builds for weeks through fete after fete, steelband competition and calypso tent, before ending on Carnival Monday and Tuesday, the two road days, with everything stopping at midnight on Ash Wednesday. The structure of mas that the rest of the world copied was set here. Bands are organised in sections, each with its own costume design; bandleaders and costume builders work through the season in the mas camps; the road runs behind music trucks and, in the traditional bands, behind steel. The big set pieces are J'ouvert before dawn on Carnival Monday, Panorama for the steelbands, Kings and Queens of the bands, and the Parade of the Bands across the stage in Port of Spain on Carnival Tuesday. Alongside the big modern bands, Trinidad keeps its traditional mas characters alive — blue devils, moko jumbies, midnight robbers, dame lorraine, pierrot grenade. For anyone searching "Trinidad Carnival dates", "TnT Carnival" or "Carnival Tuesday", this is that carnival.
Source: ncctt.orgWhen it happens
Trinidad 2027 runs 8–9 February 2027. J'Ouvert opens it before dawn on Monday 8 February 2027, and the main parade follows on Tuesday 9 February 2027. Trinidad Carnival always falls on the Monday and Tuesday immediately before Ash Wednesday, so it moves with Easter — usually February, sometimes early March. The season itself starts just after Christmas.
Source: ncctt.orgParade
The Parade of the Bands runs on Carnival Monday and Carnival Tuesday, with the main judging and stage crossings in Port of Spain and further parades in San Fernando and other towns. Carnival Tuesday is the full-costume day; Monday is traditionally played in a lighter version of the costume after J'ouvert. Routes, stage locations and times are set each season by the National Carnival Commission.
Source: ncctt.orgJ'ouvert / Jouvay
J'ouvert opens Carnival Monday before dawn, and it is the oldest part of the festival — descended from Canboulay, the cane-burning procession taken over by the newly freed after emancipation in 1838. Revellers move through the streets in mud, paint, oil and old mas behind rhythm sections and trucks, often from around 4am, until the sun comes up and the day's mas begins.
Source: ncctt.orgFêtes and festival week
The Trinidad Carnival season runs from just after Christmas to Ash Wednesday and is as much about the fete calendar as the road: all-inclusive fetes, cooler fetes, breakfast parties and boat rides run for weeks. Around them sit the formal competitions — Panorama for the steelbands, staged in rounds through January and February, the Calypso Monarch and Soca Monarch competitions, Kings and Queens of the bands, and Junior Carnival. Pan Trinbago publishes the Panorama round dates and the National Carnival Commission publishes the season's official calendar.
Source: pantrinbagott.comCulture and history
Trinidad Carnival's roots are in resistance. French planters brought masked balls in the late 1700s; enslaved Africans, excluded from them, held their own celebrations, and after emancipation in 1838 the freed population took the streets with Canboulay — the procession that became J'ouvert. Colonial authorities tried repeatedly to suppress it, leading to the Canboulay riots of 1881. Out of that came calypso as social commentary, the tamboo bamboo bands that replaced banned drums, and eventually the steelpan, invented in Trinidad in the 1930s and 40s from oil drums. Every element that later travelled to Notting Hill, Toronto, Brooklyn, Miami and Atlanta — sections, bandleaders, mas camps, J'ouvert, Panorama, the stage crossing — was worked out here first.
Source: visittrinbago.ttMasLife coverage
MasLife has not filmed Trinidad yet — the information above comes from verified public sources. If you filmed it, submit your video and it can be the first.
Next Trinidad Carnival
The season coming up, and the one happening right now.
Trinidad Carnival archive
Every past Trinidad season we have covered. These pages stay up permanently — the footage does not expire.
Islands in Trinidad
Questions
- When is Trinidad Carnival 2028?
- Trinidad 2028 runs 28–29 February 2028. J'Ouvert opens it before dawn on Monday 28 February 2028, and the main parade follows on Tuesday 29 February 2028.
- When is Trinidad Carnival 2027?
- Trinidad 2027 runs 8–9 February 2027. J'Ouvert opens it before dawn on Monday 8 February 2027, and the main parade follows on Tuesday 9 February 2027.
- Where is Trinidad Carnival held?
- Trinidad Carnival takes place in Trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago.
- How do I get my own Trinidad footage on MasLife World TV?
- Submit it at maslifeworldtv.com/submit. If it is your footage and it is from the road, we publish it with your credit.
