Sunny Side Up NY 2014: Labor Day Weekend Breakfast Party Highlights
Sunny Side Up brought its signature breakfast-party experience to New York during Labor Day Weekend on August 31, 2014, taking over Pulse48 Yard in Brooklyn from 10 AM to 4 PM. The daytime fete brought together Soca, Caribbean party culture and a packed DJ lineup as New York prepared for the annual West Indian American Carnival celebrations.
For patrons familiar with Trinidad Carnival, the name Sunny Side Up already carried history. Surviving Carnival records trace the event back to at least 2007, when Sunny Side Up appeared on Trinidad Carnival fete schedules as an all-inclusive breakfast party in Petit Valley. It continued appearing on Carnival calendars year after year, establishing itself as part of the traditional run of early-morning parties held around Carnival Sunday, immediately before Carnival Monday and Tuesday.
The format was built around one of Trinidad Carnival's distinctive experiences: beginning the fete while it was still dark and continuing as the sun rose. Sunny Side Up editions were regularly scheduled around 4 AM, combining Soca music, food, drinks and morning revelry. By the early 2010s, the party had become a recurring fixture within Trinidad Carnival's busy Carnival Sunday calendar.
A Long-Running Trinidad Carnival Tradition
Sunny Side Up's presence can be documented across multiple Trinidad Carnival seasons leading into the New York event captured by Julianspromos.
The breakfast party appeared on Carnival schedules in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, generally associated with the Petit Valley and Diego Martin area. By 2012 and 2013, surviving listings place the event at or around St. Michael's Parish Grounds in Diamond Vale, another community closely associated with Trinidad's Carnival Sunday breakfast-party tradition.
A Trinidad and Tobago calendar for the 2013 Carnival season identified Over Easy Promotions as the organization behind Sunny Side Up. Trinidad media coverage from the period also described Sunny Side Up among the popular breakfast parties taking place on Carnival Sunday.
That history meant that by the time Sunny Side Up reached New York for the Labor Day Weekend edition documented here, the brand was already associated with years of Trinidad Carnival mornings, early starts, Soca and the transition from darkness into daylight.
Sunny Side Up During Trinidad Carnival 2014
The year documented in the Julianspromos video was also an active one for Sunny Side Up in Trinidad.
On March 2, 2014, Sunny Side Up returned during Trinidad Carnival as a Carnival Sunday breakfast party beginning around 4 AM. The Trinidad edition featured live entertainment including Roy Cape Kaiso All Stars with Blaxx and Dil-E-Nadan, along with DJs including DJ Dayne and DJ Cin.
That Trinidad event took place approximately six months before the New York Labor Day Weekend edition.
The connection between the two events can also be seen in the music lineup. CIN, who was associated with the Trinidad edition earlier that year, was among the DJs listed for Sunny Side Up NY in Brooklyn.
Sunny Side Up Comes to Labor Day Weekend in New York
On Sunday, August 31, 2014, the Sunny Side Up experience became part of one of the biggest Caribbean weekends in New York City.
Sunny Side Up NY was staged at Pulse48 Yard in Brooklyn, with the party running from 10 AM until 4 PM. Pulse48 was already a familiar venue within Brooklyn's Caribbean entertainment scene, hosting Soca, Reggae, Dancehall and other Caribbean events.
The timing placed Sunny Side Up NY directly in the middle of New York's Labor Day Weekend festivities. Throughout the weekend, Caribbean parties, concerts, J'Ouvert activities and other events brought large crowds into Brooklyn ahead of the West Indian American Day Carnival Parade on Eastern Parkway.
Rather than duplicating Trinidad's pre-dawn start, the New York edition adapted the breakfast-party concept into a daytime Labor Day Weekend fete while retaining the Soca-driven atmosphere associated with Sunny Side Up.
Music at Sunny Side Up NY 2014
Music for the Brooklyn edition came from a substantial lineup of DJs and selectors.
The advertised lineup included:
Tony Cross & Kevin Evil, DJ Dane, CIN, Notorious, Freaks 4 Soca and DJ Anonymous.
With multiple DJs rotating throughout the six-hour event, the soundtrack centered around Soca and Caribbean party music during one of the busiest Caribbean weekends of the year in New York.
Julianspromos Coverage
Julianspromos was on location at Pulse48 documenting Sunny Side Up NY as part of its growing Caribbean event coverage.
Media coverage was handled by Chandelle “Chandy” De Riggs and Intrigue Lane, capturing scenes from inside the party and preserving the atmosphere of the 2014 New York edition.
The footage was later edited by Julian Hackett for Julianspromos.
This period marked an important stage in the growth of Julianspromos' media operation. By 2014, its work had expanded beyond digital Soca promotion into documenting Carnival, fetes, artists and Caribbean cultural events across multiple markets.
The Sunny Side Up footage became another piece of that expanding archive.
The Sunny Side Up Legacy
Sunny Side Up continued beyond the 2014 New York event.
The Trinidad breakfast party appeared in Carnival coverage in 2015, 2016 and 2017, including editions promoted as the Sunny Side Up Premium Breakfast Party. The brand also expanded its Carnival offerings during this period with additional events surrounding the season.
More importantly, Sunny Side Up demonstrated unusual longevity within a Caribbean fete landscape where individual events and brands can change considerably from year to year.
More than a decade after the Julianspromos New York footage was recorded, Sunny Side Up was still staging its Trinidad Carnival Sunday breakfast experience, with editions promoted for 2025 and 2026.
That continuing history gives the 2014 Julianspromos footage greater significance today. It captures a New York chapter of a Trinidad Carnival event brand whose documented history stretches back to at least the 2000s and whose breakfast-party tradition has continued across multiple generations of Carnival.
Looking Back
Sunny Side Up NY 2014 offers a glimpse into the way Trinidad Carnival culture traveled with the Caribbean diaspora.
An established Trinidad breakfast fete became part of Brooklyn's Labor Day Weekend landscape, surrounded by the music, parties and Carnival activity that transform New York's Caribbean communities every year.
For Julianspromos, the footage also documents another point in the company's development as a Caribbean media platform. With Chandelle “Chandy” De Riggs and Intrigue Lane covering the event and Julian Hackett editing the footage, the video preserves both the party itself and another chapter of the people who helped build the Julianspromos archive.
More than a decade later, those highlights serve as a historical record of Sunny Side Up, New York Carnival culture and Julianspromos in 2014.
