A look into the event ‘Notting hill carnival’

Overview – Nottinghill carnival has been an annual carnival which takes place on the last weekend each year in august. The event began in 1965 when immigrants from countries such as Trinidad and Tobago decided to bring together the people of nottinghill who faced countless amouts of racism. The event itself had an objective of raising awareness of racism, cancelling it out and bringing about a more acceptably diverse society, the carnival also worked to raise awareness of the lack of employment oppurtunitities for the black immigrants as wel as the poor housing conditions.

According to he official nottinghill carnival website, the carnival has six disciplines that make up the event we know It as today, those are as follows: Mas’ (Masquerade), Steelband, Calypso (Political, Social and Satirical commentary, set to music), Soca (The traditional music of carnival, a fusion of Soul and Calypso), Static sound systems, and samba. Nottinghill carnival has evolved each year until it has become what we know it as today, a colourful soundful and free spirited event that is recognised worldwide.

Elements of tourism strategy –

Strengths –

In 1995 nottinghill carnival became a nationwide event attracting more than 1 million people worldwide and contributing towards 93million towards the U.K. economy. The strength of he carnival just kept on getting greater and greater, the increase in tourism within the U.K. raised drastically, as people from all over the world were being drawn towards the carnival, more merchandise was being sold and more profit eventually being made. Due to the poularity of the event and word of mouh sprrading throughout the objectives of the carnival were also getting closer to being successful. London was becoming more and more culturally diverse and not only this but it was also becoming acceptable for cultures from all over to lvie in harmony with one another.

Weaknesses –

Despte its many strengths and unbeatable popularity, nottinghill carnival is not without its weaknesses, some of which are as follows: Although to date, it attracts up to and sometimes over 1million people worldwide, the carnival seems to slowly be losing its concept which as mentioned above, was to raise awareness of the lack of employment, the poor living conditions and the racial inequality within our society. The carnival has now become a place to go not for raising awareness but more for a place to party and drink and be merry. Another weaknes is also to do with the popularity of the carnival, this is the crime factor.

In 1976 the festival hit a record amount of people and 14,000 police officers were brought in to protect people from the growing amount of crime that became more apparent and worsened as the years went on. The police force that were brought in, although brought in to protect attendees of the festival from thiefs and pickckets, they adopted a stop and search policy bringing tension to carnival goers who were unable to enjoy the festival with so many arrest being made public and injuries.

Finally crowd control was a major problem even with new forces being brught in for preotection, due to the carnival being an outdoor event as well as the major numbers of people attending, the need to control the people whom were attending became more and more obvious, however it also became more difficult. Barriers could not be put up due to the fact that the carnival was surrounded by local citizens who lived amongst the areas of the carnival, the police force could only control the crowd to an extent without increasing the problems themselves by contributing towards the number of attendees.

Oppurtunities – nottinghill carnival in 2007 a record number of tw million people attended the two day carnival wth another record amount of police force being deployed to protect the surrounding area and the citizens. There has also been talk that nottinghill carnival will expand to not only other parts of great Britain, but also into other countries. This would be a profitable lead forward for the PLC, because s far they have dominated the carnival sector within London each year bringing in the most amount of peole into their carnival than any other carnival totalled up together throughout the year.

There popularity already proceeds them so if they were to expand into different countries keeping the same objectives they had when initially starting the carnival, then they not only have the potential to increase profits dramatically but also to increase the acceptance of social diversity in countries and cities that are less likely to beaware of cultures from around the world. The future outlook for the carnival as well as carnival go-ers is a more relaxed social environment not only at the carnival times but also all year round, and also create a diverser and more culturally aware society in general.

Threats – Although popularity within an event is generally a good thing, it can also be a downfall for an event such as nottinghill carnival. Especially so because it is an outside event, crime is a major problem within the carnival itself. Depsite having a reputation of being a spiritual, cultural and diverse carnival, it also has a bad reputation for criminal activity. Each year as numbers grow in attendees of the carnival, nubers also have to increase for the amount of security being deployed to protect citizens. The crime itself may not only be a downfall to the carnival, but the policing of the event may be also, seeing so many police force around will un-nearve the carnival go-ers and may even lead to repelling them from the event itself.

The pollution the event causes (and nt necessarily the environemental pollution caused by the food and litter) but the noise pollution has proved to be somewhat of a major threat. Although only ever happening annually, the carnival s held within the streets of Ladbroke grove, which is populated by many houses and apartments in which people live, so to have a two day festival with over a million people attendings and music and bands and performances on stage, is not exactly the ideal living situation for residents at the last weekend of audust each year.