All roads lead to Mas camp during the carnival season as revellers gather on Bacchanal Fridays to dance, chip, wine, and get on bad all in the build up for the non-stop partying of carnival week. Mas Camp has become an integral part of the landscape of Kingston, and has very much been established as one of the major party venues even outside of carnival. The Mas Camp is now into its fourth year at
Stadium North having moved from its first location at Oxford Road in February 2012. Oxford Road was extremely popular and initially fans wondered if the advantages of that location could possibly be matched. It comes with an even more central position, spacious parking which facilitates better security and control for patrons’ vehicles, easy accessibility by public transport and a very cool breeze off the hill. In addition, Bacchanal Jamaica enjoys an excellent partnership with the stadium authorities which has resulted in conditions which not only ensured the relative permanence of the venue but allowed the organisers to put in proper infrastructure to accommodate guests more comfortably. According to director Charmaine Franklin “preparing the venue from scratch allowed us to be creative and to pull on lessons learnt from the previous location in our design. We looked at how we could improve the space for the comfort and the overall ambience and to provide a better experience for both sponsors and patrons and introduced several new elements. Viewing balconies for sponsors to facilitate entertainment of their guests and an unobstructed view of the stage. Welcome innovations are the additional bathrooms to ensure comfort of the growing numbers of “bacchanalists”, and the VIP bathrooms. Of course there is the main office area that also houses the display of the costumes for the season and the costume workshop where the much of the work on the fabulous costumes take place. A large main bar, ticket booths and a food pavilion are permanent features of the venue, however the large open space allows for additions of more bar and food areas as well as allows easy configurations of the space to create special themes and activities. With all the infrastructure that is permanently in place, the Mas Camp offers a turnkey operation that makes it easy for promoters to set up and host events.
