Calabash Festival in Montserrat offers soulful alternative to Caribbean's big Island celebrations

Montserrat: Away from the bustle of the big islands’ festivals and parades, the Calabash Festival in Montserrat offers a more private and emotional show of a soulful celebration that is traditional and warm. In 2025, the festival will take place from July 18 to July 27, and is an annual celebration which honors the island’s culture and the common calabash fruit which for generations has been used to make bowls, cups, musical instruments, and decorations.

Nicknamed the "Isle of Emeralds in the Caribbean," Montserrat offers rich Irish heritage and green landscape, changes into a home of Afro-Caribbean storytelling, ancestral rhythms, and deep community spirit during those ten days of the Calabash Festival. Unlike other Caribbean festivals, it does not offer pageantry or mass tourism; but meaningful connection to the land, the people and the past.

Highlights of the Calabash Festival

• Calabash carving contests which display the art and variety of this symbolic fruit
• Local artisans at traditional craft events which feature basket weaving, pottery, and the making of calabash utensils
• Village picnics filled with laughter, local food, and the sound of live string bands
• Cultural nights which come alive through stories, African drum beats, folkloric dance, and outdoor reenactments of island legends under the starlit sky

The experience of the festival is enhanced by the warm hospitality of Montserratians, who allow visitors to stay at their homes during the 10-days. Also, the Calabash festival promises that the visitors will enjoy some of the island’s finest home cooked meals and inside access to community led events and village get togethers.

As the rest of the region gets into the Carnival spirit, Montserrat invites locals and visitors alike with a different kind of invitation -- a connection with their natural setting in the mountains, taste of their homegrown bush tea out of a calabash cup, and to hear the rhythms which tell tales from the past.