Junkanoo Has Outgrown Bay Street — And It’s Time We Admit It

Let us finally say what too many people are afraid to say: Junkanoo has outgrown Bay Street.

The venue that once served us well now strangles the very art form it was meant to showcase.
It limits creativity. It frustrates performers, blocks artisans, disrupts merchants, and it cheapens a world-class cultural product. The evidence is no longer theoretical. We saw it with our own eyes in Freeport, Grand Bahama, during the 2026 Junkanoo parade.

That parade was a revelation. No chaos. No clutter.
No unnecessary bodies clogging the route.
No 80-plus judges wandering through formations.
No photographers playing obstacle course with dancers.
No “vest brigade” flooding the street to feel important.

What we saw instead was flow.
Freedom.
Space.
Respect for the performers.

And suddenly — almost magically — Junkanoo looked what it is supposed to look like:
A grand, disciplined, exhilarating spectacle of Bahamian excellence.

So why are we still pretending that Bay Street is sacred?

Bay Street was perfect when the groups were smaller, the costumes were lighter, and the crowds were thinner. That era is gone.

Today’s Junkanoo is bigger, bolder, louder, taller, wider, and more ambitious.

We now build lead pieces that belong in global carnivals — not squeezed between light poles, wires, trees, shop signs, and street barricades.

You cannot tell artists to dream big — and then force them into a narrow, cluttered corridor. That is not tradition; it is creative suffocation.

And the tired excuse about “acoustics” no longer holds water.

If Freeport, with open space and no surrounding high-rise buildings, can deliver clear, beautiful sound, then Nassau can too. This is not about sound; this is about fear of change.

The old-school mentality that says: “This is how we always did it” is precisely what kills cultural progress.

Junkanoo is not a museum piece. It is a living, breathing, evolving art form. And living things must grow.

The proposal is not radical. It is practical.

The wide road behind the Sports Centre, behind the Government High School complex, and leading toward the Andre Rodgers Baseball Stadium, offers everything Bay Street does not:

• Space for massive costumes
• Easy access for trucks and group logistics
• No overhead wires
• No storefronts blocking flow
• Room for bleachers on both sides
• Clear sightlines for spectators
• Safer, smoother movement
• And ample parking

It is purpose-built for an event of this scale.

And let us finally ask the uncomfortable question:

Is it fair to sacrifice downtown merchants — at their highest earning season — by blocking foot traffic with bleachers, barricades, and security walls?

We say Junkanoo is for tourism, but we shut down the very streets tourists want to walk.

That is not cultural pride. That is economic self-sabotage.

We cannot keep forcing a 21st-century spectacle into a 1960s footprint.

If we genuinely love Junkanoo, if we truly respect the artisans, musicians, dancers, and communities who pour their souls into it, then we must give them space to breathe, build, and shine.

Freeport showed us the future. Now Nassau must catch up.

The parade must move, not because Bay Street failed, but because Junkanoo has succeeded beyond it.

And success demands room to grow.