The Crop Over Festival is a three-month celebration of Barbadian music, art, cuisine, culture, and more. Barbados‘ carnival celebrations come to a close with Kadooment Day, a major carnival procession. Kadooment is the largest and sweetest carnival in the Caribbean, held in August to end the carnival season. The event begins early in the morning at the National Stadium and concludes late in the afternoon on Spring Garden Highway with gorgeous masquerade bands traversing the local city streets.
1. Origins
Its roots may be traced all the way back to the 1780s when Barbados was the world’s largest sugar producer. The Crop Over festival, which marked the completion of another successful sugar cane harvest, was always held at the end of the sugar season.
As the sugar business of Barbados collapsed, so did the Crop Over festival, which was eventually discontinued in the 1940s. The festival was reintroduced in 1974, and additional aspects of Barbadian culture were included to produce the current spectacular…. an event that attracts thousands of people from all over the world.
2. Where Is Crop Over Celebrated?
Crop Over takes place in Barbados, a Caribbean island paradise measuring 21 by 14 miles! Barbados is the easternmost island in the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies, located in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The majority of the festivities take place in Bridgetown, Barbados’ city, and the island’s geographic center. The National Stadium will host the majority of the major events. Spring Gardens is converted into a carnival hub during the celebrations, with hundreds of street vendors and market stalls selling food, drink, arts, crafts, apparel, jewelry, and other items.
3. The Celebration
The festival kicks up with an Opening Gala and Ceremonial Delivery of the Last Canes, as well as the crowning of the Festival King and Queen, who is the season’s most productive male and female cane cutters.
Many stalls serve food and beverages, as well as local arts and crafts, at the Bridgetown Market. While browsing the vendors, listen to calypso and soca music and watch live entertainment. Cohobblopot is a massive carnival-style spectacle that features members of the Kadooment bands wearing elaborate and gorgeous costumes. A large entertainment package is also available, with the most popular calypsonians and bands performing to sold-out crowds.
Children are not forgotten, as they can take part in the Kiddies Kadooment, donning stunning costumes and forming a band to parade before the competition’s judges.
The festival includes folk music as well as painting and photographic exhibitions that promote Barbadian history and culture as well as Bajan artistic ability.
One of the highlights of the Crop Over celebration is calypso music. The calypsonians are divided into “tents,” each of which is sponsored by a Barbados company.
Party Monarch, Sweet Soca Monarch, Road March Monarch, and Pic-O-De-Crop Monarch are among the prizes and titles that calypsonians fight for.
The Grand Kadooment is the festival’s grand finale! Large bands with musicians dressed in elaborate costumes portray numerous themes in this carnival parade. Designers fight for the prestigious Designer of the Year award, while the partygoers appear to be more concerned with having a good time.
