Rio de Janeiro’s famous carnival parade is postponed, parties cancelled

Jan 24, 2022 | News

People in Brazil were reacting Monday to news that Carnival parades are being postponed in Rio de Janeiro until April and that parties associated with the week-long event will cancelled altogether.

The carnival will now be held in April on the country’s famous week-long holiday, Tiradentes.

“Carnival is extremely important for the city of Rio de Janeiro, in all aspects, especially economically. It is a generator of business opportunities not only for the hotel chains, directly focused on tourism but also for all the workforce around the party; merchants, street commerce, restaurants, informal economy,” said Marcelo Guimarães singer and songwriter for samba school Beija-Flor de Nilopolis.

Before COVID hit, the last time Brazil had the celebration was in 2020 and it was considered the most profitable in the last five years prior to that point.

Around the country, more than 25,400 temporary jobs were created, especially in the sectors related to food, accommodation and transport.

The city of Rio de Janeiro had more than 6.4 million people taking part in the parties and samba school parades.

The festivity is considered a postcard to the world. It is not only important economically speaking, but is also a cultural event, a fundamental importance for the country since it projects Brazil’s image abroad.

Even before the parade was postponed, the mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, had announced the cancellation of the street parties.

The announcement was made during a livestream on his YouTube channel after meeting with representatives of the parties. In the livestream, Paes was accompanied by the Secretary of Health, Daniel Soranz, and the president of Riotur (Tourism Company of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro), Daniela Maia.

In the livestream, the mayor also confirmed the samba schools parades were still happening.

“We are going to establish the Carnival protocols in Sapucaí, which is confirmed. There, we can establish effective controls. In a way, this also applies to private parties, which it is possible to control. The street parties, by its very nature and democratic aspect, make it impossible to exercise any type of inspection.”

Still, people say more needs to be done than just cancelling the parties.

Décio Bastos Caprichosos de Pilares Samba School Administrator said “if it is to give more security to the population and the components, we accept it and respect it. But it is difficult to understand why only the carnival and the samba school parades need to be postponed, and all other events were kept.”

Rio de Janeiro has more than 70 samba schools, all of which are seen parading during the four days of Carnival in the Sapucaí, a venue built expressly for Carnival.

Both people who spoke with Humber News said the world may not know that samba schools work like a company, with multiple sectors. Each sector has a part of the story, with dance, music and a visual representation with a parade that takes an hour.

The move to postpone the parade “changed everything, depending on the schedules pre-established by the school, and mainly the uncertainty in the confirmation of it happening in April,” said Bastos.

“It involves money, values, the income of people, buying and selling materials, such as wood and iron.”

Guimarães said that people do a lot of work and put expectations on the samba schools and that postponing the parade, which the schools waited two years for, “brings to the carnival industry a great frustration and loss.”

The singer and songwriter also said the postponement was “prudent to control the spread as we cannot let our passion for carnival overcome reason in the sense of irresponsibility.”

Brazil registered a record in the six consecutive days, with 135,080 new coronavirus cases and 296 deaths in the last 24 hours.