Brother Marcus stays back in Toronto to get Carnival Nationz ready for Carnival 2022

This is the first year that Marcus Eustace did not enter a costume in this year’s Trinidad Carnival, which ended last Tuesday. M Eustace has won the King in Trinidad ten times in the last twenty years.

The well regarded and highly successful mas man in our Toronto Caribbean Carnival (Caribana) took over building costumes in Trinidad following his father’s death in 2001. Eustace won his first Trinidad King of Carnival competition in 2002 with his Jab Molassie presentation.

“This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually missed a carnival. Remember before I took over from my dad I was always in the Savannah helping to prepare the mass,” Eustace told The Caribbean Camera.

“But we had a Eustace in the “big yard” because brother Curtis, who has himself won nine Carnival Kings over the years, went down to Trinidad and in about three weeks he built two costumes – the king costume for himself and a queen costume for a friend – he came second in the competition,” he spoke with great pride.

“I was hopeful that he would win. You know, he won three with my father and six times with me. I was hoping that he would win number ten on his own; that would have been a great

thing but he came up short by two points, that is tough.”

Commenting on the standard of mas this year in Trinidad, Marcus said that, based on what they had to work with and the time in which it had to be done, “I think you have to give them [the mas producers] a lot of credit for pulling it together at such short notice.”

“This year I used the time to prepare for Carnival Nationz presentation for Caribana this year. I am always working on something even last year I was working on some costume concepts. Right now I am building a prototype for our band lunching, which is coming up for Easter weekend at Chateau Le Jardin on Saturday, April 16th 2022; located at 8440 York Regional Rd 27 in Vaughan, ON L4H 0A7.”

Curtace’s brother Marcus leader of Carnival Nationz a top band in Toronto Carnival having won 8 Queens and 8 Kings in the last ten years along with 5 band of the year titles. This year they hope to come stronger and bigger “because,” he says, “we think this will be our best presentation yet for Toronto Carnival, which is on Saturday July 30th 2022.”