I can feel the Spirit… it calling meh!
In 2024, I decided to play mas with Spirit Mas for their first year on the road. In the past, I have only played mas with The Lost Tribe, but this year I wanted to try something new and Spirit Mas was the perfect opportunity. Now, let’s get into all the details!
REGISTRATION
Spirit hosted their band launch in July 2023. Personally, I appreciated the quick launch of prices and various costume all the different fit options. In my past experiences, bands would have costume offerings without photos of the options of the customizations. Spirit provided photos of all options, as well as various angles of the costumes. It seemed like an incredibly transparent approach.
While I appreciated the transparency, I felt a little annoyed at the registration process. If you were interested in playing mas with the band, you were required to fill out a form, and the confirmation emails were glitching. I received a confirmation, while my partner did not and it took a while for that confirmation to be received. Overall, I’m not really a fan of the request to register approach to mas, but I suppose that has become standard.
DISTRIBUTION
Costume collection began a week prior to Carnival Monday, with each section having priority pick up days. The process was quite smooth and took me about an hour from arrival to finally receiving my costume. It did not feel chaotic. There was a little walk to the parking lot from the distribution center, but Spirit Mas employees were there to assist carrying your items to the car, which I really appreciated!
I also really appreciated the live DJ, the pop-up vendors, and the fact that Spirit employees sat and went through your box with you.
GOODIE BAG
For some reason, 2024 felt like the year of the goodie bag wars. Everyone was comparing and rating their goodie bags from their bands. I personally thought the goodie bag from Spirit was decent. The bag itself for female masqueraders was great quality, and we also received a reversible bucket hat, road cup, fan, and some other small items for the road and otherwise. I personally don’t need a lot of useless things in my carnival goodie bag to accumulate waste, so I was satisfied with the contents, especially that hat!
COSTUME
I played in the section Sylph designed by Rhion Romany. It was instantly my favorite costume when I saw the band launch so I’m glad I was able to get my choice. I had no mishaps with the gems falling off or anything like that, except for a piece of the wire bra detaching slightly (but that was half-way through Tuesday). Overall, I loved the fit of the costume, but I thought the tiara was a little awkward.
Spirit also provided QR codes that linked to costume tutorials so that we were not left confused on how to wear our costumes on Tuesday! ABSOLUTELY NEEDED.
MONDAY
I think the one thing about Spirit Mas that everyone was looking forward to was their Monday Mas Brunch. From 10:00-13:00, Spirit offered its masqueraders an all-inclusive brunch, before hitting the road. I was intrigued by this idea as many bands do not offer this experience. When I arrived at the park for brunch, we scanned our wristbands and were greeted by an enormous amount of food options. There were no lines or long waits and the menus were inventive. My favorite eats were the maracas shark taco and the glazed donut fried chicken sandwich. I was genuinely in awe at how great the brunch offerings were.
In the brunch park, they also had unlimited alcohol, a beauty bar, a sunscreen pop-up, ample photo ops, a shaded area with misters, and a performance by Nailah Blackman and Skinny Fabulous to get the vibes going. I was thoroughly impressed and it only made me more excited to get on the road. I think this brunch experience was great especially because I played jouvert earlier that morning.
We hit the road around 13:30 and the vibes did take a little while to pick up. I thought most of the DJs were okay, however, I still find that there are so many soca songs I do not ever hear on the road, yet hear the same 5 songs on repeat. There were some trucks that played better than others though.
When the band arrived on the St. James stretch, we were joined by traditional mas characters such as blue devils, moko jumbies, baby-dolls, and more. I was absolutely living for this! I love this inclusion of Trinidadian tradition in the pretty mas. It was a great reminder of our culture and it felt great to be chipping alongside these characters.
The drinks trucks had great offerings and there was no real fight up to get drinks — easy process! Another offering Spirit had was packaged cold towels to help fight the heat. They truly thought of everything and I appreciated that.
The day wrapped up back at the meeting spot and I felt like it was a good amount of time for Monday, leaving ample time to rest and recover for the big day.
TUESDAY
The band meeting time was 7;00, however, I arrived in Port-of-Spain around 10:00. Luckily, the band was passing Independence Square right at that time so we got in easily. I think the heat was beating a lot of people BAD because the vibes were not all the way up and it felt like we were just maneuvering the streets at this point. I was feeling hungry and I saw that there was a doubles truck in the band. I literally thanked God!
We made it to the Savannah but it took a looooooong time to actually cross the stage and the heat was unbearable. Members of the Spirit Mas team were passing out cold towels AND cold water for us as we waited, so it made the wait more bearable. We crossed the stage to Carnival Contract by Bunji Garlin and it was great to see everyone jumping up and signing their names on the stage. I usually love crossing the stage, but I got frustrated by all of the waiting. Obviously, this is not Spirit’s fault, but just something to consider as a future masquerader.
Once we crossed the stage, we were told to head directly to the lunch park. The trucks raced to the lunch spot and we weren’t chipping, but instead, fast walking to the park which was FAR away. According to my phone timestamps, we left the stage at 14:10 and we (my group) arrived to the lunch park at 15:05. Soooo… yeah. It was a little frustrating.
Once we arrived to the lunch park and scanned our wristbands, we were told we had the choice of two different food options amongst the many tents they had. I went to the shortest line and had biryani and chicken tikka masala. There were air conditioned tents, but it was a little full, so we ate our lunch under a shaded canopy type thing. At the lunch spot, there were charging stations for your devices, as well as a private VISA card lounge that folks could access if they had that pass. I enjoyed the chance to rest and hydrate. One thing to note was that the lines for the female restrooms were long, and I ended up waiting until after to use the toilets.
I believe the late stage crossing cut down on our road time, so when we left the lunch spot at around 17:30, I told myself time to fully activate! We were determined for the last leg to be as hype as possible and that it was. The bar even gave us two full bottles of GTC rum punch (lol).
The route ended back at Fatima Grounds for Climax, Spirit’s official after mas party. THIS WAS AMAZING. I have never enjoyed an after party to this extent (minus hitting my head on a cart handle). The drinks were still flowing, and whoever was DJ-ing did an incredible job. We also had multiple performances including Lyrikal, Mical Teja, and more. To top things off, there were fireworks, though reports are saying it wasn’t affiliated with the band (oops!).
Overall, I was impressed by the Spirit Mas experience and I would highly recommend this for people looking for an all-rounded mas experience, with great vibes, food, and customer service.
Is the Spirit calling you?
Loved this! Yes the spirit calling me – God spares. Great article!
Oh seems like you thoroughly enjoyed, minus that head thump
This was an amazing piece on your experience! Hoping to read more about trinidad and your overall carnival experience.