Uncle Skinny’s Kids Carnival a blast at Park

The intermittent rain, muddy conditions and threatening dark skies proved no match for the resilience of thousands of children who flocked to the Victoria Park on Sunday, June 19 to mingle with their favourite cartoon characters:{{more}} Elmo, Spongebob Squarepants and Dora the Explorer.

The Scotiabank Uncle Skinny’s Kids Carnival is being hailed a success, and with the massive turnout at Sunday’s event, there’s no disputing that.

Despite heavy rainfall on Saturday, June 18, which caused the show to be pushed back to Sunday, the park was filled with children and parents in numbers resembling that of a Soca Monarch show.

Although the rain fell for sometime throughout the day, the skies cleared up for the children to partake in activities such as the ring toss, Arcade games, face painting, bike riding, horse back riding, trampolines, bouncing castles and many more.

The looks on the children’s faces were priceless when Dora, Sponge Bob and Elmo took the time out to pose for photographs with them and interact.

Strangely enough, the parents also expressed great excitement to see the characters their children love and adore.

It was also pleasing to see many fathers with their young ones at the Park on Father’s day.

As the event neared its end and the show’s activities intensified, children gathered stage side and on the stage for a mini concert which saw some of the biggest names in Vincy Soca hit the stage including: R3cka, Colombian, Fire Empress, Galanaire, Problem Child and headliner and organiser of the show Skinny Fabulous.

From the moment he echoed his punchline, “Yes-I”, the children went wild as Shertz ‘Problem Child’ James jumped onto the stage and belted out some of his hit songs of past and present. After putting on a great performance, Problem Child urged the youngsters to respect their parents and stay in school.

However, much of the kids’ attention was drawn to the life-sized cartoon characters Dora, Elmo and Spongebob, as they also graced the stage in dance. Dora showed her dancing skills with the La Gracia Dance Company, while Spongebob showed the crowd that although he lives under the water, he’s just as funny on land.

Without a shadow of doubt, Sesame Street’s Elmo displayed dance moves that were the envy of all of his other cartoon character colleagues. He break-danced and joined with dancers Teen Titans to display some smooth dance moves.

Some of the children even had to be ushered off stage, when it was announced that the stage was beginning to sink in the wet, muddy conditions of the park.

When it was Uncle Skinny’s turn to take the stage, the ear-splitting screams were nearly enough to drown out the music that was playing.

In a fabulous performance, Skinny interacted with the children and had five of them come on stage to see which one could sing the best. From Pop star Justin Beiber’s song “Baby” down to nursery rhymes, the kids sang at the top of their lungs in hopes of winning a prize. However, there weren’t any losers on the night, as each child was presented with a junior savings account at Scotia Bank with a start of $100.

Toddler Antonia Haynes danced her way over four others to win a brand new bicycle.

Other performances on the night came from: Groundbreakers dance group, Avenues Dancers, Sion Hill Euphonium and Pannist Saed Bowman.(KW)