DigiLocal @ St Pauls Carnival 2020

The global COVID-19 pandemic closed the street party, but couldn’t stop Carnival!

Since its beginnings back in 1968, St Pauls has grown in size and reputation to become one of Bristol’s biggest attractions. Crossing generations through a celebration of Afro Caribbean culture, it is an event where every float, every stage, every performer and every person tells a story – and that story is how music and dance and community can bring people together.

In the weeks leading up to Carnival we put out the invitation for young people to design their own dancers and floats for St Pauls Carnival 2020. Working with Elisabetta (our graphics intern from City of Bristol College) we developed some original templates and new backgrounds for the parade.

We had loads of great submissions and the final projects were played as part of the community films between the main music sets. It was great to see how different young people interpreted Carnival and included images and flags from their cultures. The young people also had great fun animating their dancers!

It was a fantastic experience working with the Carnival team and we’re really looking forward to an even bigger and better virtual component to next year’s St Pauls Carnival!

You can find our dedicated Scratch channel for the carnival with the project file.

The whole event was streamed live on twitch.

To make these movies available for everyone we’ve also saved them to our YouTube channel.