01
Carnival organizations & federations
A platform that lifts your band, masquerade camp, or federation onto a multi-day global stage with the production weight behind it.
Inaugural showcase · Long Beach, 2028
A global home for Carnival traditions, creators, and community.
CarnivalCon is a proposed 501(c)(3) and live-events platform dedicated to celebrating, preserving, and expanding Carnival from around the world — programming, scholarships, and cultural exchange anchored in a first multi-day showcase on the California coast.
- Format
- Multi-day live
- Inaugural
- Long Beach, 2028
- Structure
- 501(c)(3)
The mission
A celebration that outlasts the weekend.
Carnival is a year-round practice — borrowed and reinvented in cities from Port of Spain to Notting Hill to Oruro to Mage. Single-day multicultural festivals honor that work in a Saturday; what's missing is a format built around the tradition itself: multi-day, anchored in cultural preservation, and structured to keep paying its creators and communities back.
CarnivalCon exists to close that gap. We treat Carnival as global intellectual property — produced live, then carried year-round through media, licensing, and programming that supports the people and places that hold it. Three interconnected divisions carry the work: CarnivalCon Events (the live showcase and programming), CarnivalCon Media (the year-round platform, documentary and licensing arm), and CarnivalCon Foundation & Programs (the 501(c)(3) preservation, scholarship, and education work).
Programming pillars
Five lanes, one platform.
Each pillar is built to feed the others — programming pays the creators, the scholarship fund lifts new ones, and the historical record makes sure none of it evaporates after the schedule is printed.
- 01
Cultural showcases
Multi-day programming that puts Carnival traditions from every continent on a single stage — song, dance, masquerade, and oral history, side by side with the communities that keep them alive.
- 02
Youth & family
Workshops, costume camps, and intergenerational storytelling that hand craft, language, and rhythm forward to the next generation of Carnival creators.
- 03
Costume & creative arts
Exhibitions and residencies that treat Carnival costume as living art — commissioning designers, documenting technique, and preserving material knowledge.
- 04
Scholarships & exchanges
Travel stipends, ambassador appearances, and international cultural exchange that move Carnival practitioners between festivals — building a working global network, not just a calendar.
- 05
Carnival history
Educational storytelling — oral histories, archival work, and public programming that records where these traditions come from and what they carry.
Signature program
Ms. Carnival — global cultural ambassadorship.
A pageant reframed. The Ms. Carnival competition is judged on Carnival-specific authority — authentic costuming, community contribution, performance, and Carnival knowledge — not a generic-cosmetic criteria borrowed from purpose-driven pageants.
The role carries real weight: scholarships, ambassador appearances, and pathways for emerging creators that keep money and visibility flowing back into Carnival communities.
Find your place
Three doors into the work.
CarnivalCon is built from the people who walk through these doors. Pick the one that's yours — we'll do the rest.
02
Creators & performers
Costumers, musicians, dancers, and artists — apply for residencies, scholarships, and the Ms. Carnival competition pathway.
03
Destination & cultural partners
Tourism boards, civic partners, and sponsors who want association with authentic cultural preservation, not a generic multicultural fair.
Support the mission
Carnival preservation runs on patrons, partners, and people who show up.
Whether you're underwriting a scholarship, sponsoring a stage, joining as a member, or just introducing your federation to the work — start with a conversation.
Write to us
carnivalcon@polsia.appWe reply personally. Tell us who you are and what you're bringing — a masquerade camp, a foundation, an arts council, a question.
Inaugural showcase
Long Beach · 2028
Our first multi-day showcase — a working draft we keep promising to the people already building toward it.
Save the date