The Crop Over festival, held every summer, traditionally celebrated the completion of the sugar harvest and the end of months of exhausting work for the field-labourers on the sugar estates. As with carnival in many countries (which immediately precedes a period of fasting), Crop Over carried a frenzied sense of "enjoy-yourself-while-you-may", as workers knew that earnings would now be minimal until the next crop. Alongside the flags, dances and rum-drinking, the symbol of the festival was "Mr Harding" - a scarecrow-like figure stuffed with the dried leaves of the sugar-cane - who was paraded around and introduced to the manager of the sugar plantation.

Though Crop Over has lost some of its significance since the 1960s, with tourism replacing sugar as the country's main industry, it's still the island's main festival and an excuse for an extended party. Things start slowly in early July, with craft exhibitions and band rehearsals, heating up in late July and early August with street parades, concerts and competitions between the tuk bands, steel bands and - most importantly - the battle for the title of calypso monarch , dominated in recent decades by the Mighty Gabby and Red Plastic Bag.

The Congaline Carnival is held during the last week in April, with a varied package of mostly local music that includes soca, reggae, steelpan and calypso. Daily shows are held from mid-afternoon to late evening, usually at Dover pasture near St Lawrence Gap, and other events around the island conclude with a May Day parade through Bridgetown from the Garrison savannah to the Spring Garden Highway.