Barbados is actively preparing the next edition of the Caribbean Festival of Arts, to be held in August 2025. The 15th edition of this great regional artistic and cultural event was due to take place in Antigua & Barbuda in 2021 but was cancelled due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Then, in 2022, the government of these twin islands officially announced that it would no longer be organizing this major gathering.
It took CARICOM two years to find a state in the area with the financial means to host CARIFESTA. The organization’s chairman and president of Guyana, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, delivered the news at the press conference following the 46th meeting of heads of government held in Georgetown last February: “CARIFESTA will be bright and beautiful on the sunny beaches of Barbados in August 2025”, he declared. A single sentence to answer those who were wondering when this great meeting will take place, and which was taken up by all the Caribbean media.
It will be six long years that the artists hoped for this major event, since the last edition took place in 2019 in Trinidad & Tobago, for the 4th time since its creation in 1972.
Why Barbados? We can also think that Barbados is now experienced in the CARIFESTA preparations since, after 1981 and 2017, this will be the third time the country will be responsible for hosting all the actors of Caribbean creativity. Seven years ago, the 13th edition attracted some 3,000 artists and artisans to Bridgetown.
In 2025, the new republic (since November 30, 2021) will have three major cultural events to celebrate: Crop Over (carnival), We Gatherin and CARIFESTA.
