Sundae Fest pays homage to ice cream

The sweet, cold and creamy treat is enjoyed by the young and old alike and has always been the welcomed remedy to a hot day. The excitement brought by the neighbourhood lolly man or ice cream truck has increased a thousandfold for many anticipating Trinidad and Tobago’s first ice cream festival to be held on July 21. On that day, the training ground at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Port-of-Spain, would be transformed into an ice cream wonderland when owner and co-ordinator at My Team Events, Kenyon Champion, and his team brings Sundae Fest to reality. The festival had been a dream of Champion and his partner, Trinidad-born Lyndon Baptiste, who is the managing director of the UK based Cayenne Company.

“He had the idea for the event,” Champion said in a recent interview with Newsday. “There are events like this across the world and we thought it would be perfect for Trinidad and Tobago given our history with ice-cream,” he said. Champion traced the local love affair with ice cream – from the Sunday evening trips to parlours, stalls or even carts where the best homemade flavours could be found, to ice-cream trucks going through the streets with children following in its wake to the present when any local or international brand can be bought during a trip to the grocery. “Our culture loves ice cream. Lyndon and I have been friends for a while and when he told me about this idea, we decided to get together and do it,” Champion said. They began organising the event last October and at the end of nine months they expect to host the ultimate ice cream lovers’ experience. Champion has been working on getting some of the most popular local and international ice cream brands to be a part of the festival and so far most have been eager to come on board. So far Marble Slab Creamery, Island Naturals Home Style Ice Cream, Yogurt Land, Flavorite Supreme Ice Cream, The Original Dairy Bar, and Cold Stone Creamery have given their commitment to the festival and Champion said there are many more who expressed their willingness to take part.

He insisted the focus of the event is on the ice cream lovers’ experience. “It is not about competition and all of the companies involved know this and agree with it. There is enough of the pie for everyone. The main purpose is to get everyone interested in ice cream and to experience all the local and international flavours available here,” Champion said.

He assured even the small-scale local ice cream makers would have their chance to shine with homemade and uniquely local flavours.

Leading up to the event, the Sundae Fest team would be hosting different contests and giveaways, including a national ice-cream eating competition and a national home-made ice cream competition. The team would be visiting different communities for the preliminaries of these competitions. The winners of these community legs would then have the chance to compete at the finals which may be held at Sundae Fest. Champion said the team is currently working out the logistics of these competitions and details would be provided in the near future.

At Sundae Fest, there would be lots of activities for adults and children including bouncy castles, puppet and magic shows and arts and crafts areas for the young ones and bazaar-type games for the young at heart. Champion also promises free ice cream for all and live entertainment from rhythm sections, steelbands, tassa groups and other artistes. The event, which has the tag line “We All Scream for Ice Cream!”, is growing more popular each day judging from the response on the Sundae Fest Facebook page and Twitter account.

“One of our overall goals is to make it an annual event. It is something for persons with a sweet tooth. Ice cream is possibly the number one dessert food in Trinidad and Tobago and we want to celebrate it with a festival. We hope that it would grow every year and bring new things about ice cream to all local ice cream lovers,” Champion said.