The Year People Needed Carnival the Most, It Was Canceled Loyal enthusiasts on what they missed in a year they needed Carnival the most. Booming music. Glittering costumes. And perhaps even more important: the feeling of being free. After a year of racial reckonings, the celebration of Carnival — which provides a much-needed release for many revelers from London to New York to Toronto and beyond — was canceled. “The loss of Carnival goes beyond costumes, music, liming [socializing] and physical contact,” said Ingrid Persaud, a Trinidad and Tobago-born writer who lives in Britain. Would-be Carnival attendees said they missed the exuberance, the roti and pepper pot, singing along with others on the road and the very act of gathering.