Notting Hill Carnival 2020: details announced for online version
Sound systems will play sets alongside steel bands and costumed ‘mas’ performers on four livestreamed channels, after coronavirus cancelled million-strong festival
Details have been announced for 2020’s Notting Hill Carnival, which will take place online amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The event usually attracts more than a million people to the streets of west London on August bank holiday weekend, for two days of Caribbean cultural expression including costume parades, steel bands and sound systems playing dancehall, roots reggae and more.
These celebrations are to be replicated in a series of free livestreamed events, already filmed across the course of a month, that will be shown across four channels on the Notting Hill Carnival website. Events will run from noon until 11pm on 30 and 31 August, with warm up events from 9am–noon and 6pm-midnight on 29 August.
Fourteen sound systems will be playing sets, including famous names such as Volcano, Rampage, King Tubby’s and Arts-A-Light. There will also be 20 dance hall or soca artists, and 15 steel pan or Brazilian carnival bands. Other “well-known UK and international artists” will be announced, according to organisers.
Some 29 of carnival’s “mas” groups – street theatre performers in elaborate costumes, who continue one of the oldest carnival traditions – will give a flavour of the eye-catching live parade.
Matthew Phillip, Carnival’s executive director, paid tribute to “the thousands of people that spend all year creating incredible costumes and music”, and said: “Carnival is such an important part of people’s lives and a key celebration of the multiculturalism of the UK, and we have a responsibility to our community and pioneers to honour that. We also have a responsibility to protect the black community and our elders by respecting social distancing and taking Carnival away from the streets for this year. So this is a fantastic solution for 2020.”
Spotify is an official partner of the event. The streaming service will host playlists curated by sound systems organisers, as well as podcasts about Carnival history and issues facing the black British community, on a new website.
By Ben Beaumont - Thomas
theguardian.com
