Tampa Caribbean Carnival Festival

The 4th annual Caribbean Family Festival came to the Florida State Fairgrounds this weekend, bringing authentic island culture, music, food and dancing to Tampa. The sounds and smells of the islands filled the air, courtesy of several stages and lots of smokers preparing food.

When coming to festivals like this, I’ve noticed a turn for the worse over the last year. As the economy continues to fail, events like this suffer. Attendance was way down. The family feeling I’ve gotten from festivals of this type in the past feels like it’s coming apart at the seems. The event started out slow, maybe 200 people in attendance as of 4PM. I’m sure the scorching heat probably had a lot to do with this as well, but even at 5PM when the heat began to die down, there were probably less than 400 people on the grounds.

Attempting to make the most of it, I did enjoy a few of the sites, sounds and flavors of the Caribbean.

The Snocones were cheap and large. For $4, I got a monster of a Snocone that helped subdue the beating overhead sun.

Several food vendors poked at their fires and continued to serve up jerk chicken, oxtails, pork and other island specialties.

A few dressed the part of the event, going in head dresses, body paint and colorful outfits.

Vendors were on hand to sell traditional island music, t-shirts, flags and other merchandise.

Some non-traditional food appeared as well. When I think of Caribbean food, I don’t usually think of gyros and tacos.

A masterful wack of the machete cleaves fruit open, exposing the milk within. This was probably my favorite part of the show.

If the economy picks up next year, I can see this festival being a success. They had a lot of good elements going but poor attendance, morbidly hot weather and a lack of unity brought down the appeal. Hopefully, this is a temporary failing in a grand festival tradition.

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