Kadooment Day in 2024

When is Kadooment Day?

Kadooment Day is a public holiday in Barbados on the First Monday in August.

It marks the finale of the six-week Crop Over festival and is one of the most colourful and energetic of the Caribbean carnivals.

History of Kadooment Day

The Crop Over Festival is the traditional end of the Sugar cane season and has been celebrated for over 200 years.

Sugar cane was first introduced to Barbados at the end of the seventeenth century. It made Barbados home to one of the world's biggest sugar industries. This meant a large workforce was needed and slaves and indentured servants were brought from Africa. It was these workers who also brought the traditional harvest festival of Crop Over from Africa.

Since then this signal of the end of the sugar cane harvest has grown into Barbados' largest national festival, which lasts six weeks from May and culminates in Grand Kadooment on the first Monday in August.

'Kadooment' is a Bajan phrase that means a large party.

On Grand Kadooment, a parade of Masquerade Bands with about 1,500 revellers takes place on the streets cheered on by the throngs of onlookers trying to make themselves heard over beat of the the calypso music. At the end of the parade the bands are judged and while there is a keenly contested Designer of the Year prize, for most the focus is on having fun.

Other Caribbean countries celebrate Carnivals at this time of year and while they are similar to Kadooment, they are based on a mixture of the European pre-lent carnivals as well as the African influences and even keep the names of J'Ouvert and Mardi Gras. Kadooment contains none of the religious elements from these carnivals.