Preparations for Vincy Mas start months before the actual festival. Costume designers spend weeks cutting, sewing and gluing thousands of feathers, beads and sequins onto elaborate carnival costumes called 'mas'. Each costume band has a theme - perhaps the ocean, the rainforest, or an ancient civilisation - and every costume in the band follows that theme, creating a stunning visual spectacle when they all march together.
Music is the heartbeat of Vincy Mas. The Soca Monarch competition crowns the artist whose song becomes the official anthem of the carnival road march - the song everyone will be singing and dancing to in the streets. The Calypso Monarch competition recognises the wittiest and most entertaining songwriter. Both competitions are judged live in front of enormous, passionate crowds.
Junior carnival events make sure that children are part of the celebration from the very start. Young people from across Saint Vincent design their own mini-costumes and parade through the streets in the Junior Carnival, watched by proud families lining the route. For many Vincentian children, their first Junior Carnival is one of the most exciting memories of their lives.
On the final Monday of carnival, the big road march takes place in Kingstown. Thousands of revellers in stunning costumes dance through the streets behind music trucks pumping out the season's best soca tracks. Spectators line every pavement and balcony, waving flags and joining in the choruses. For the whole day, the city is one giant, joyful dance party.