Baywatch Cooler Fete NY 2014 at Pulse48 | Julianspromos

Summer in Brooklyn took on a Caribbean beach-party feel on Sunday, July 27, 2014, when Baywatch Cooler Fete transformed Pulse48 Outdoors into an all-day themed fete complete with coolers, water, foam, beachwear and a purpose-built sand pit.

Presented by Jason Benn & The Ambassador Ladies, Baywatch ran from 12 PM to 10 PM, giving patrons ten hours of Soca and Caribbean party music in the outdoor Pulse48 Yard. The concept went further than simply giving an event a beach-themed name. Lifeguards, beach balls, sand, foam and water were incorporated into the experience, creating a summertime escape in the middle of New York City.

Julianspromos was there documenting the event, with media coverage by Julian C. Hackett and Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson. All Julianspromos footage was shot and edited by Julian C. Hackett, preserving the music, performances and atmosphere of Baywatch Cooler Fete during the summer of 2014.

Bringing the Cooler Fete Experience to Brooklyn

The cooler fete has long occupied its own lane within Caribbean party culture.

Instead of an all-inclusive format where drinks are supplied by the promoter, patrons arrive with their own coolers and build part of the experience around what they bring with them. That more relaxed format also lends itself naturally to daytime and outdoor events.

Baywatch took that foundation and wrapped an entire theme around it.

The July event was promoted around beachwear, encouraging patrons to dress for the concept rather than a conventional nightclub fete.

Once inside Pulse48 Yard, the theme continued with lifeguards, a sand pit, beach balls, foam and water.

Those details made Baywatch more experiential than a standard outdoor Soca party. The venue itself effectively became part of the entertainment.

Ten Hours at Pulse48 Outdoors

Baywatch was scheduled from noon until 10 PM, making it a true daytime-to-nighttime summer fete.

The lengthy format gave the event room to move through different stages. Patrons could arrive during the afternoon heat, experience the water and foam elements while the sun was still out, and remain into the evening as the outdoor party continued.

That schedule also separated Baywatch from the late-night Caribbean club events common in New York.

Instead, the event leaned into the kind of daytime outdoor liming associated with Caribbean summer and Carnival culture.

Pulse48 Yard was particularly suited to that concept. During this period, Pulse48 was being used repeatedly for outdoor Caribbean events, allowing promoters to build experiences that would have been difficult to reproduce inside a conventional nightclub.

The Soundtrack: TriniBoom, Boom Champions & More

Music was central to Baywatch’s ten-hour format.

The advertised music lineup included:

TriniBoom
Boom Champions
Young Maddy
Natural Freaks
Vibes Unit
and more

That DJ and sound lineup kept Baywatch rooted in the New York Caribbean party scene while the event itself borrowed the atmosphere of a beach fete.

Rather than depending on one major headline concert performance, the music crews carried the party across the afternoon and evening, giving the event the continuous energy expected from a cooler fete.

Local Artists Take the Stage

Baywatch also made room for live performances.

The event featured guest appearances by Young Voice, Wildfire and Mr Famous, bringing local and Caribbean Soca talent into the outdoor party.

That element is important to the archive because the 2014 New York Soca scene was not sustained only by visiting superstars. Local performers, DJs, promoters and media platforms were all part of an ecosystem that kept Caribbean music active in the city between the major Carnival weekends.

For some performers, Baywatch provided another opportunity to reach the New York audience in a less formal setting than a traditional concert.

Mr Famous Comes Off a Major Carnival Season

Of the guest performers, Mr Famous arrived at Baywatch following an especially notable Trinidad Carnival season.

Born Junior Noel, Mr Famous had already spent years within Soca, including periods as a lead vocalist with Tidal Wave, Roy Cape All Stars and Horizon before eventually relocating to the United States.

In 2014, his song “Play More Local” became one of the important records of his season.

The song carried a message encouraging Trinidad and Tobago audiences and broadcasters to support homegrown Soca music throughout the year rather than limiting that support to Carnival. Contemporary coverage described the record as receiving substantial local, regional and international airplay.

Its momentum carried Mr Famous all the way into the 2014 International Groovy Soca Monarch final, where he competed against a field that included Ravi B, Kerwin Du Bois, Farmer Nappy, Destra Garcia, Machel Montano and others.

Mr Famous ultimately finished second in Groovy Soca Monarch with “Play More Local,” behind Ravi B’s “Bread.”

He also competed in the Power Soca Monarch competition with “Hay Lay Lay.”

His Baywatch appearance therefore came only months after one of his most visible Trinidad Carnival seasons, bringing that momentum into New York’s summer Soca circuit.

A Different Kind of Caribbean Summer Event

What distinguishes Baywatch in the Julianspromos archive is not a giant international headliner.

It is the concept.

The event took the familiar Caribbean cooler fete and deliberately recreated elements of a beach party inside a Brooklyn entertainment venue.

Beachwear established the visual theme.

The sand pit created a physical beach element.

Water and foam turned parts of the event into an interactive experience.

Beach balls and lifeguards reinforced the playful Baywatch identity.

And the combination of DJs and guest performers meant the theme never displaced the music at the center of the fete.

For a New York audience, it created a Caribbean summer experience without leaving the city.

Jason Benn & The Ambassador Ladies

Baywatch Cooler Fete was presented by Jason Benn & The Ambassador Ladies.

The surviving event information identifies them directly with the July 27 production, placing the team behind a concept that was more elaborate than a conventional venue-and-DJ party.

Creating the Baywatch environment required the event to be built around more than the entertainment lineup. The physical features were part of what patrons were being invited to experience, making the production itself an important part of the fete’s identity.

The historical online footprint for Baywatch Cooler Fete is now limited, and I have not found enough reliable surviving evidence to establish a long-running annual Baywatch series.

For that reason, this archive preserves the 2014 edition on its own terms rather than attaching an unverified recurring-event history to it.

Julianspromos at Baywatch

Julianspromos’ media coverage team for Baywatch included Julian C. Hackett and Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson.

The event also survives in the documented media history of Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson, where Baywatch Cooler Fete NY is listed among the events she covered for Julianspromos during 2014.

Her presence was part of a busy year of Julianspromos field coverage that included New York events as well as Carnival assignments in other markets.

All Julianspromos footage from Baywatch Cooler Fete was shot and edited by Julian C. Hackett.

That production credit places Baywatch within a much larger body of 2014 Julianspromos video work documenting the Caribbean entertainment scene from inside the events themselves.

The footage preserves not only the performances, but the features that made this particular fete distinctive: the crowd in beachwear, the outdoor setting and the water, foam and beach-inspired atmosphere built around the Baywatch theme.

Looking Back

More than a decade later, Baywatch Cooler Fete 2014 captures another side of New York’s Caribbean party culture.

Not every important archive moment came from a massive concert or an internationally famous headliner.

Sometimes the story was the fete itself.

On July 27, Pulse48 Yard became a temporary Caribbean beach environment where patrons arrived with coolers, dressed for summer and spent the day surrounded by Soca, water, foam and live entertainment.

TriniBoom, Boom Champions, Young Maddy, Natural Freaks and Vibes Unit provided the music. Young Voice, Wildfire and Mr Famous brought live performances. Jason Benn & The Ambassador Ladies created the concept.

And Julianspromos was there to preserve it.

With Julian C. Hackett and Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson covering the event and all footage shot and edited by Julian C. Hackett, the surviving highlights now serve as a visual record of a very specific slice of Brooklyn Caribbean summer culture in 2014.