It's Wednesday afternoon, and the once plain sports hall in Butetown Youth Pavilion is now a riot of colour. The floor is awash with different materials - from blue netting to foil and tissue paper - along with paint palettes, spray cans, scissors, twigs, and artificial flowers.
People young and old sit amidst the disarray - heads down and eyebrows furrowed in concentration - as they create hats, capes, tunics and flags. Two helpers mingle amongst them, one assisting a young boy as he bejewels a crown.
They're working hard because they have a strict deadline to hit. Butetown Carnival is just three days away - a historic two-day celebration of the area's notable past and the bright future of its multicultural community.
READ MORE: Butetown Carnival 2022: Everything you need to know as thousands expected for Cardiff event
This year, it's taking place on the bank holiday weekend, beginning on Sunday with a joyous parade from Loudoun Square to the Senedd building. Attendees will be treated to free activities at the Cardiff Bay's waterfront - including face-painting, circus skills workshops and games - as well as live music on two stages. To finish off, there will be a three-hour finale performance in the Wales Millennium Centre featuring Reggae greats Johnny Clarke and Horace Andy.
Lead organiser Keith Murrell, 65, anticipates there will be about 2000 carnival goers in attendance - with others visiting Cardiff Bay also expected to be attracted to the festivities. Sitting at a table in the pavilion, where he oversees the hubbub of activity, he explains to us the long history of the carnival.
Dating back to 1967, in its heyday throughout the 1980s it attracted up to 25,000 people a day, despite a local population of around 4,000, and started to receive funding. But after some problems with "money management" towards the end of the 80s, it eventually fizzled out by the mid-1990s. "It died, and there was no more carnival," said Keith.
The demise of the carnival lasted for 15 years, until it was revived in 2014 - remarkably without any funding - and Keith took over as lead organiser. He said the intention at first was to just "sing and jam for a couple of hours" with a barbecue, even if only 50 people showed up.
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But they received newfound support from the Wales Millennium Centre this time around, which offered a stage them a stage. "It was an act of defiance. And the [Wales] Millennium Centre turned up and put a whole new aspect on it - we had a stage now. From then I had to go from finding four or five musicians to four or five bands. So it built up from there, and we've grown every year."
For the first few years after relaunching, Butetown Carnival still had no funding. But today, having maintained its partnership with the Wales Millennium Centre, it has also received widespread support and sponsorship from other bodies, including the Senedd, Arts Council of Wales and Transport for Wales.
Ffion Morris, community engagement producer at Wales Millennium Centre, said they have helped to set up the workshops and will also be providing tech support and staging on the day. "It's something that gives us so much joy to be able to support," she said. "We've actually got the carnival finale in our main Donald Gordon Theatre on Monday night."
But the support the event is given by the community of Butetown - and wider Cardiff - is perhaps the most important of all. Community workshops - where members of the public can help make the costumes and floats - attest to. This year, two weeks of daily workshops have taken place in Butetown Youth Pavilion, as well as a four-week costume-making course at the Wales Millennium Centre, and a third workshop at Cardiff Pedal Power's site in Pontcanna.
At the Butetown Pavilion workshop - the one we pay a visit to - it's clear that the value of carnival is still keenly felt by Cardiff's local community decades after it first began, as we tiptoe between those hard at work and speak to them about their involvement behind the scenes.
The annual event is a family affair for brothers Thelonious and Lafayette Parekh-Porter, who have lived in Butetown their whole lives. They'll be taking part in the parade with their parents on Sunday, and are busy making their attire for the walk to the Senedd. They've been involved in the carnival for years - starting off by just taking part, before actually making things.
Thelonious, 14, has done everything from costume-making to rug tufting. Today he's making the head a frilled-neck lizard headpiece, made of wicker sticks and tissue paper. "I'm going to finish it by Friday. I always leave stuff to the last minute," he laughed.
Lafayette, 11, has been helping out since he was seven. Today he's making a tiger costume. "I've made a cape with the backbone of a tiger," he said, adding that his inspiration was both his hometown of Tiger Bay and the fact tigers are an endangered species, with nature and environmental concerns are common themes for the costumes this year.
Explaining the importance of the carnival for him and his family, he said: "Carnival is one of the most central parts of the community. One of the reasons I like it is because I can stay with my friends for longer. I like the food as well."
He continued: "My dad has lived here all his life, and one of the reasons why he said he wanted to stay here is because of the community - and carnival is one of the things that shapes the community and brings it together."
Huda Hajinur, 42, has come to help out with her two daughters Zara, 9, and Safiya, 10. Having lived in Cardiff her whole life, she now resides in Bristol but comes back to the capital for the summer holidays. She stumbled upon the workshop in the pavilion and decided to join in as a "fun thing for the kids to do".
Though the three won't actually be attending the carnival itself, this hasn't stopped them from getting stuck into their creations, which other attendees will wear. Huda is making a gown which depicts a dying tree (twigs and flowers) set against foliage- an artistic interpretation of the impact of climate change and pollution on nature.
Helper Caroline Richards, who is a creative workshop facilitator, has been assisting "on and off" with the carnival since 2015. "Years ago, I used to be in the parade, and then I got into the making [of the costumes] and then facilitating. I came at it from different directions. I've enjoyed dancing in the parade as well and I'm in a Samba band, so I've been making music at the carnival too. So [I've participated] through aspects of my lifetime - not necessarily in one go."
Though Caroline is not from Butetown herself and lives in Cathays, she recognises just how much the carnival means to its local community. "It's an event where people can come together and just celebrate this part of town. It's inclusive to anyone who wants to join - from other parts of Cardiff, from other parts of Britain, from other parts of the world - but it belongs to Butetown, and that's really important," she said.
"My favourite aspect of the carnival is when it all comes together and the energy is amazing. It's the music I think primarily that brings that, but it's the visual spectacle of it. It's everyone's excited faces, everyone engaging. The children being wide-eyed and loving it as well, and giving them memories to embed it in the community's identity."
At the back of the hall, two people are rehearsing an evocative dance performance with long pieces of blue material. As they catch their breath during a break, we find out that June Campbell-Davies - a Cardiff-based choreographer - is practising with Mujib Yahaya, an entertainer and performer based in Cardiff, for a show called Dwndwr y Dŵr (Water Whisperers), which has been touring around Wales and will be performed on a stage in front of the Senedd building as part of the carnival.
Talking about the inspiration for the dance, June said: "We started working with the idea of migration, combining Mabinogion myths to it, and also trying to tie in how climate change is affecting people today. A lot of the imagery that you get from [the dance] is that it's dealing with water."
She added that Mujib will be replacing the lead performer who has been with them on the tour. "So we can keep the life of the piece going and we just rehearse new people into the piece," she said. Mujib is also a member of the Oasis One World Choir, which will also be putting on a show on stage during the celebrations on Sunday.
"It gets tiring as a single father as well - I brought my child with me here today," Mujib admitted. "But it's enjoyable as well - you see the joy on people's faces, when you deliver all those pieces." Over in Cardiff Pedal Power's site in Pontcanna, preparations are also in full swing, as mother and daughter artist duo Niki and Alice Fogaty lead a community workshop making floats from cycles for the parade, with the help of Innovate Trust, a Cardiff-based charity for people with disabilities.
Sam Farnfield, senior officer at Pedal Power, said they have been building large impressive structures to fit atop of cycles - mostly side-by-side trikes - that will be ridden by both Pedal Power volunteers and people supported by Innovate Trust.
"It's sea-themed. They're building a variety of different sea creatures - there's a large seal, a ray, some mackerel and a dolphin," he said. He added that the cycle floats are great for people who would struggle to participate in the parade on foot. "It works with Pedal power's charitable aims. We're all about inclusivity and people not being left behind."
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