Notting Hill Carnival History + Evolution of London’s Carnival

Описание

The biggest and best street party in Europe and the biggest PR disaster in the world returns. This year’s event has been dubbed “the bank holiday battleground” by the media which will ensure securing major sponsorship from image conscious global brands and reducing public expenditure next year like every year is a bit tricky.

London’s Notting Hill Carnival today is the 2nd biggest street party in the world, 2nd only too Rio Carnival. The Notting Hill Carnival has grown to become a celebration of Caribbean culture and the British Caribbean community. I walk to this year’s carnival and talk through the evolution of events that helped form the Carnival we have today. Then take a look at this year’s carnival.

Notting Hill carnival as it is today was not started by one person or one single event. It evolved and was driven forward by many great woman and men over many years.

Carnival attracts over 1 million visitors per day. It is an overwhelming success story in terms of visitor numbers many returning year after year. Yet the mainstream media & press invariable focus on crime statistics and policing of the event rather than the event or any positive aspects or impacts. Largely due to the organisers continued contempt for the media and reluctance to simply and publically take responsibility or offer solutions to problems before putting them in context of scale and often simply dismissing them.

London is a multicultural city and it has been for most Londoners living memories. The key to any multicultural society is encouraging inclusion not exclusion. It’s about supporting and continuing your own ethnic and cultural customs while supporting other peoples. It’s not a problem with a simple solution as some would suggest, it’s a challenge that requires constant work and will require continued work to avoid parallel yet divided societies within one city.

The carnival is far from perfect and although a few of the revellers do some very silly things when you compare the streets of Notting Hill, fighting against each other in 1958 to the partying together in 2016 its positive progress.