Black River has a festival every July 30 to celebrate the town, its history and its own little culture down on the south coast of Jamaica. From what I’ve read in the media this festival gets bigger and better each year and since I’ve become very familiar with the south coast over the last few years I’ve always wanted to be there for this festival. Finally, in 2016, it was my first time attending.
The town of Black River starts setting up early. When I arrived on July 26th the town bridge and the courthouse were already fully decorated in Jamaican colors in preparation for the festival and for Jamaican Independence Day, soon after on August 6th. Driving into town at this time of year made my heart happy seeing all the colorful decorating!
So, for this Black River day festival they pretty much block off the entire town of Black River in order to be able to ram the streets full of festivities. Among those festivities were a steel drum band (video below), Jamaican dance groups (video below), tons of vendors, a huge food court setup, several stages where various performances happened, and yes…..a mechanical bull. Sadly, I guess I wasn’t at the mechanical bull end of town when people were riding it because the two times I walked past, no one was doing it. I would have loved to capture Jamaicans riding a mechanical bull!
No matter where I’m at in Jamaica, if there are dancers around I’m in there like a dirty shirt watching and this day was no exception. There was a sound set up in a parking lot near one end of town and once the dancing started a crowd formed quickly. Even a drone flew in to capture the action and in the days following that same drone seemed to show up at every single event I attended.
One of the best vibes I felt all day had to be this steel drum band though. I adore the island sound of steel drums and this group captured a pretty big crowd in the street once they started playing! If you notice the video is a tiny bit shaky it’s because I couldn’t stop dancing while I was shooting this video.
The events of the day were pretty awesome, LONG, and hot as hell. I admit I took a mid-day break back at my guest house and probably even took a nap, knowing that the festivities would go on into the night and I’d be back out on the road.
Sure enough, night time was when the adult fun began. After dark, literally every single parking lot or empty space in the town had a sound set up and was converted into separate party / dance zones. All we had to do was saunter around town and stop in at whatever spot sounded the best to us at the time. We hit up tons of individual pockets of fun throughout the town, including the main stage area where a surprise guest appearance by none other than Tanto Blacks happened. Yes…..the drone was invading that space too lol.
The BEST part about the entire Black River day / night festival was that everything was absolutely FREE! All the entertainment, all the parties, everything….FREE! What a fantastic way to draw a crowd and some attention to this otherwise quiet little town. It was awesome for families with kids during the daytime and tons of fun for the adult crowd after dark.
The next morning was a Sunday and the entire town was shut down. I had to drive through to get to a supermarket and it looked like the apocalypse had blown through lol. Not a soul in sight, the streets were deserted and all that remained was the mess of the night before.
Signs of a great time had by all! Amazingly, the festival committee had the town spic and span clean by the end of Sunday.