Notting Hill Carnival announces series of live shows to raise funds for 2022 event

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Organisers of the Notting Hill carnival have launched a fund to ensure that the annual August event can go ahead next year, after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the west London street celebration to be cancelled for the second consecutive year.

The team behind the event said the Carnival Trust Fund would be used to “help support the carnival community”, including bands and artists that might, without assistance, have had to stop performing.

“Notting Hill carnival belongs on the streets, but the COVID pandemic presented too much uncertainty to plan for a safe event over the August bank holiday weekend,” said Matthew Phillip, CEO of Notting Hill Carnival Ltd. “It also put bands in a difficult financial situation that had the potential to close them down, despite decades of history.”

The funding campaign will take in a book, ‘Carnival: A Photographic and Testimonial History of the Notting Hill Carnival’, which will be sold to raise money, while proceeds from a series of live events will also go towards the cause.

The events will take place under the Carnival Culture in the Park umbrella, and will feature traditional and contemporary Caribbean music as well as opera. It will run across three days as part of the Opera Holland Park festival, in central London, from the 19th to 21st August.

This summer’s edition of the Notting Hill Carnival will take place online, as was the case in 2020. Full details on what it will involve will be announced in the coming weeks. It’s hoped a full in-person event will be able to return in 2022.