Jamaica’s two newest carnival bands have dubbed their first road show a profitable event despite going up against the decade-long carnival band Bacchanal Jamaica and the re-emerging Jamaica Carnival.

In fact, newcomer Xaymaca International told the

Jamaica Observer that the band has exceeded its target by 25 per cent, with the majority of its supporters being international and regional carnival chasers.“The Xaymacan experience has spoken for itself by exceeding every expectation of our masqueraders and this will do the most effective marketing — word of mouth. A lot of our masqueraders have already indicated their intention to return next year and surprisingly, we have been receiving requests already by new masqueraders to sign up for 2018,” Xaymaca Director, Andrew Bellamy said.“So we intend to ensure that Xaymaca is relevant and in the eyes of our target audience through pop-up fetes, strategic alliances and heavy marketing plans both locally and internationally,” he continued.In April, Jamaica, for the first time saw the coming together of four bands — Bacchanal Jamaica, Jamaica Carnival, Xodus Carnival and Xaymaca International — for a road march branded Jamaica Carnival in Kingston.It marked the 29th year that carnival is being celebrated in Jamaica after being introduced to Jamaicans by a group of carnival loving revellers from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.“It was a truly successful year and its one more entertainment tourism product that Dream Weekend has brought to Jamaica,” managing director of Dream Entertainment which operates Xodus Carnival, Scott Dunn, reasoned.According to Dunn, Dream Entertainment’s partnership with Trinidad-based carnival band Yuma assisted in making what was initially intended to be a small niche band in carnival, turning out to be the biggest band on the road for 2017.“It is tremendous being that it is our first year. We only launched in December so it is a testament to what people saw in Xodus and the belief that people had in Dream Entertainment as a company. Our partners in Trinidad, they know that we are going to give them the best, so from year one, they made us the number one band on the road,” he said.This year, the government of Jamaica fully supported the initiative, which was aimed at improving carnival experience in Jamaica and to market the country as the destination for the calendar event.Come next April, the directors of Xaymaca International and Xodus Carnival hope to increase their share of the carnival market.“The true strength of Xaymaca lies in our regional and international partnerships which we have established over the last five to seven years during our visits to various carnivals. With that being said, we have a desired target that we expect to achieve by 2019; and by 2018 we will be at 75 per cent capacity,” Bellamy told the

Sunday Finance.Dunn, in echoing similar sentiments, said he plans to improve his offerings to revellers from Xodus premium bar service, lunch stop, to the costume designs.“The advantage we have over last year is that last year we launched in December, this year we have the entire year to plan. Dream Weekend has a press conference in New York next week and we are going to be talking about Xedus there to over 50 media houses and we are going to be all at the carnival parties globally promoting the event,” he reasoned.