Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Saturday 22 February, 2020. This story, starring Minerva Hernández, has a happy ending. Just as the clock was about to strike midnight on Friday 21 February, the youngster from Fuerteventura received her crown and sceptre and claimed her place on the throne, as no less than the Carnival Queen of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Minerva is a 26-year-old from Fuerteventura, where she lived her entire life until moving to the capital of Gran Canaria to study law, at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. She is currently studying a master’s degree and, during the little spare time she has, pursues one of her main passions: carnival. She explained at a press conference how she met her designer some years ago, when she worked with his team on the costume worn by Cristina López Lorenzo last year. The experience led them to work together again at his studio, where they produced “Vida” – a creation that won over the jury and the public in the vote for their favourite costume.

Minerva’s love for carnival stems from the cradle. Her parents, Esther and Felipe, from Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria respectively, are self-confessed carnival-goers, and Esther took her daughters to participate in a murga on the neighbouring island ever since they were small.

Minerva is not only an inquisitive, hardworking carnival-goer, but she’s also very appreciative: she confessed that the only word that she could think of during the performance was “thank you”. Thank you to all her team, her designer and the public who were captivated by the spectacular design, signed by Josué Quevedo for Multiópticas.

When asked about her most unforgettable moment, there was no question in her mind: her three minutes on stage absorbing the warmth of the public until the very last second.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 20 February, 2020. This story began two decades ago: the organising committee of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Carnival had the audacity, although not without a certain reticence, to include an explosive novelty in its programme. That is, a Drag Queen Gala in which the “reinonas” (crossdressing queens) as they were then known, would compete for the fiestas’ alternative sceptre. This was to be on a weekday, and without much attention from the media or television.

How the story has changed! That contest turned out to be perfectly in tune with the spirit of freedom that Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Carnival has always exuded since its earliest days. That is, transgression, transformation into other fairytale creatures (of Carnival), the passport to provocation… to make people laugh, no holds barred: all this is taken as read in the most important festival in winter-time in the capital of Gran Canaria.

The Drag Queen Gala soon became a leading player in the programme (and moved from a weekday to the bank holidays). The massive influx of the public in the first years of its celebration in Santa Catalina lent weight to the innovation. And the drag queens themselves multiplied their registrations to such an extent that years ago now a shortlisting event has had to be held to choose the finalists for the grand gala.

In addition, since its inception, this Gala has featured performers of the stature of RuPaul, La Bouche, Bonnie Tyler, Tina Charles, Gloria Gaynor, Grace Jones, Sister Sledge, Alaska, Monica Naranjo and Village People … among many others. Their presence has underlined the international impact of a Gala that started as a daring joke and ended up becoming a worldwide Trending Topic. The Carnival offers full freedom for transgression. And for the integration of everyone into the party. Today, the Drag Queens are mass idols in the festivities, and even the youngest of us chase after a selfie with these shining stars of the 21st Century Carnival.

This year, the shortlisting will take place on Saturday 22 February, and on Monday 24, the Drag Queen Gala. Both events are ticketed (purchasable on entradas.laprovincia.es or at the box office of Santa Catalina Park), but tickets usually sell out swiftly. The final, however, is broadcast worldwide by RTVE, on the website of Televisión Canaria and on the organisations’ social profiles (@lpacarnival). All the same, this spirit of transgression is always juxtaposed at a right angle to the whole carnival programme: it’s enough simply to take part in the Daytime Carnival or the Carnival nights.

Drag Queen Gala
Monday, 24 February 2020
9 pm Santa Catalina Park
Tickets: sold out
After that, Carnival Night in the surroundings of Santa Catalina

Up to 14 candidates are competing in 2020 for a sceptre (this year, made from recycled glass) that gives prestige not only to the winner but also to the sponsors who support the process of designing and making up the eye-catching Carnival fantasy that each candidate wears on stage. Many kilos of feathers, ornaments and accessories bearing the signatures of different designers, specialising in Carnival, and who even have an exclusive fashion show for this unique sector in periods outside the programme.

The Queen is the great symbol of the Carnival: her crown has been awarded since the dawn of these celebrations in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. She evokes the traditional Carnival, the essential values of the celebration and the very history of an event that, from its earliest days, has built its entire programme around this long-awaited Gala.

Carnival Queen Gala

Friday, 21 February 2020

9 pm Santa Catalina Park

Price of entry: €10 at the box office in Santa Catalina and at entradas.laprovincia.es
Afterwards, Carnival Night in the surroundings of Santa Catalina

To begin with, on Friday 21, the Carnival chooses its Queen (9 pm), in an event to be broadcast internationally by RTVE, Televisión Canaria and the Carnival’s profiles on the social networks (@lpacarnival). Tickets for this event normally sell out (like those for the Drag nights, sold at entradas.laprovincia.es and at the Santa Catalina Park ticket office). But to be in Santa Catalina Park, even outside the stage enclosure, is always a very special experience: to breathe in the pure Carnival atmosphere… and the partying continues through the night with concerts in the leisure zone located next to the Cruise Ship Dock.

On Saturday 22, those travelling with children can go to the historic Calle Mayor in Triana (from 12 pm onwards) and to the Las Canteras Beach (from 5 pm onwards) to discover the animated staging of Carnival in the street, suitable for all ages.

And, that night, from 9 pm onwards, the Drag Queen Shortlisting will take place, with 29 drag queens competing to be among the 16 finalists who will be the stars of the grand gala on Monday 24 (9 pm). This Shortlisting, which fills the park with advance sale ticket-holders, is not broadcast. Images of the event are not published either: the participants want to keep their show secret, to maintain the surprise for the television broadcast of the final: once again RTVE broadcasting internationally, Televisión Canaria and the social network profiles of @lpacarnival.

Alongside all of this, this Saturday the Santa Catalina setting keeps the party going with a unique Cock Fight (Carnaval Red Bull), where national rappers compete in an atmosphere both youthful and lively, all taking place in the leisure zone (from 10.30 pm onwards).

On Sunday 23, Santa Catalina doesn’t take a rest, and the morning sees the celebration of its junior murga (carnival street bands) encounters, and the daytime concerts, until the time comes for the grand Junior Parade. From 5 pm onwards, from León y Castillo Street where it passes by the Metropole Swimming Club, all the way to Santa Catalina Park again with a grand party for the little ones as the climax of the day. It is, without a doubt, a Sunday worth enjoying as a family.

Monday is Drag Queen night as we said, although beforehand, in and around Vegueta and the course of the Guiniguada Ravine, which marks off the original city, there is a Traditional Carnival celebration: a homage to the Canary Island immigrants who returned from America, dressed in white and welcomed with a cloud of talcum powder. It’s best to go well equipped, because the atmosphere is always loaded… with white smoke that points to where the fun is going on.

Finally, on Carnival Tuesday, Santa Catalina has concerts and daytime Carnival celebrations again, until evening comes: Juanes’ concert is scheduled for 6 pm. He’s the international star of these fiestas and the crowning touch to these non-stop Carnival days.

Every year Santa Catalina Park acquires a special atmosphere on a day designated in the programme: it’s actually a morning, in which, in full daylight, an important collection of pets, 20 in 2020, gather on the spectacular Carnival stage. The dogs, along with their owners, show how much they are a part of the party. This is the Dog Carnival, a competition in which dogs compete for the prize for the best fancy dress, and in which families and visitors make up a heterogeneous and numerous audience in this setting.

The Dog Carnival is a date that both young and old don’t miss out on. Children, in fact, enjoy this dog festival in a special way; it’s a festival in which many other pets, out-of-competition, appear in the park dressed in their best fancy dress. The festive family atmosphere becomes a declaration of love for the animals, clearly born to make them a part of the celebrations.

Along with this local audience, it is common to see many visitors in Santa Catalina on this unique morning, who join the crowd and take advantage of the opportunity to complete their particular graphic report of the dressed-up dogs with their mobile phones or cameras. The image of the people from the cruise ships who, having just disembarked on the nearby Santa Catalina quay, join the party, which starts at noon on Sunday 16 February, is already a classic one, and is followed by a full Carnival Day and concerts in Santa Catalina. If the traveller gets a good vibe from Carnival and from pets, this is a unique occasion to enjoy both passions at the same time.

Dogs Carnival

Sunday, 16 February 2020

12 pm. Santa Catalina Park

Free entry for all until capacity is reached

After that, there is a programme of family concerts on the main stage and in the leisure area of Santa Catalina.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 10 February, 2020. The Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Carnival has been associated since its earliest days with the picturesque La Isleta quarter, built under the wing of the international traffic generated by the Port of Las Palmas. This is why, even today, Santa Catalina Park, next to the cruise-ship dock, is the heart of the main events of the fiestas. But the Carnival isn’t limited to this iconic square: the original city, the historic Vegueta quarter, has gone from strength to strength once more in recent years when it comes to celebrating Carnival out in the street.

In fact, the pregón (the official opening of Carnival) is held in Santa Ana Square; the square’s layout anticipates the colonial cities that the Spanish Crown was later to build on the other side of the Atlantic, with the two de facto authorities facing each other. On one side, the imposing Cathedral, on the other, the Casas Consistoriales, the City Hall buildings, still in use today for the City Council meetings.

However, the most important event of the festivities in the old city takes place on Saturday 15 February: the Daytime Carnival in Vegueta (from 12 pm onwards, and at 11 am in Santa Ana for the junior activities). There, next to the first streets to be laid in a capital which was founded in 1478, around the Casa Colón (where the discoverer Columbus made an official stopover before his first journey to America) and the riverbed of the Guiniguada Ravine (which separates the old city from the more modern one), crowds gather together in a huge popular fiesta. A grand scale celebration on a unique stage, the pure heart of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

The Vegueta Carnival is full of life, spontaneous and fun-packed. If anyone is passing through the city on these dates, a visit to the historic quarter of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is a must. In full daylight, the fancy-dress party is at its absolute best.

Obispo Codina, Calvo Sotelo, Pelota and Mendizábal Streets, and Mesa de León Square will be full of party-goers enjoying this fiesta; the schedule includes street bands and concerts with bands playing dance music live, and Carnival groups.

Detailed programme:
11 am to 12 pm. Junior Carnival, Santa Ana Square
12 pm to 8 pm. Live music

1 pm. Carnival Street Band > Mendizábal Street to Obispo Codina Street

Photos: Quique Curbelo

This year this fiesta is a tale which builds up around Santa Catalina Park, the place where all the main acts are held, with a stage which has been built for that very objective. But it actually begins in Vegueta (7 February, with the official opening speech at 9 pm), the original birthplace of a city which is now the main hub of the mid Atlantic: a compulsory connection when crossing between Europe, Africa and America. This is why Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is an open, cosmopolitan and multicultural city. And this is why its Carnival is a reflection of all of that. And that’s going to be the case again until 1 March.

The traveller can enjoy this fiesta throughout a programme which gives a leading role in its first week to the murgas and the comparsas (satirical performances and street bands) after choosing its Grand Dame (9 February, at 8 pm, in Santa Catalina): the first member of a court where there is room for both sexes, young, adult and elderly. Carnival is for everyone in this story.

That first week of the celebrations also boasts the fancy-dress competition (pure Carnival, Thursday 13 at 9 pm). And the junior crown will be chosen (Junior Gala, Sunday 16, 6.30 pm). All these events, such as the murgas and comparsas competitions, on these dates, are free entry and open to the public.

The exception is the murgas final on 15 February (8 pm). It’s also important to keep a close eye on the dates when the organisers announce the sale of tickets for the Queen Gala, the Drag Queen Shortlisting and the Drag Queen Gala. These acts fill up the big weekend of the fiesta, between 21 and 25 February, and although the prices are very reasonable, tickets (at the ticket office and over the internet) are in high demand: tickets sell out in hours.

Meanwhile, another unmissable feature on the programme are the Carnival gatherings in the street, which are also daytime events: in Vegueta (15 February), Santa Catalina (25) and Las Canteras (22). As well as the grand cavalcade (29). It’s here that costume turns into the real king of the tale of Carnival.

As well as this, in this year, the theme chosen as the setting for Carnival could not be more suitable for children: the world of stories and fairy tales. Little Red Riding Hood, Pinocchio, Hansel and Gretel, the Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk… The universe to choose a costume from is practically limitless if what you want is to enjoy the celebrations as a family, and in line with Carnival fashion for 2020. There are plenty of establishments for those passing through if they want, with costumes and complements on sale, in the big shopping centres in the Gran Canaria capital, or in the open air shopping areas like Triana or Mesa y López.

Children’s schedule

Have we got a costume already? In that case, it’s time to take a look at the programme, and to choose the moments when we want to enjoy the children’s Carnival in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The celebrations start on 7 February, with the Official Opening in Santa Ana Square, right in the heart of the historic centre of the city, preceded by a Carnival Parade which is a good first point of contact (8.30 pm, in the area around the Cathedral).

The competitions for the youngest audience start on Saturday, 8 February, on the huge Santa Catalina stage (a magic place where the stories will unfold). The children’s street bands make their debut there (7 pm) and a large number of groups of children in fancy dress will show themselves off on Sunday, 9 February, at 11 am, in a massive family encounter. As is the case for all the children’s Carnival events, access to the enclosure is free.

The Children’s Gala is scheduled at 6.30 pm on Sunday, 16 February, and boys and girls can compete with their striking outfits for the festivities’ little crown. The same day on which the Dog’s Carnival takes place at 12 pm, another favourite with families.

Big weekend

This is a taster for the big weekend of the celebrations, stretching from Friday 21 to Tuesday 25 February (Carnival Tuesday). Over that long weekend, the Family Carnival is scheduled in Triana (22 Saturday, 12 pm, once again in the historic city centre), the children’s murgas encounter (on Sunday 23 in Santa Catalina, at 11 am) and the children’s Cavalcade, a great event for the youngest audience, in a grand parade of costumes, groups and floats which leaves from León y Castillo Street, the city’s main street, heading for Santa Catalina Park, to round off the party in great style (also on Sunday 23, from 5 pm onwards).

Although there’s nothing to say that families can’t go to the Carnaval al Sol (Sun Carnival) at Las Canteras Beach on Saturday 22, a unique party parade alongside the beach, (starting at 5 pm) or experience the Daytime Carnival at Santa Catalina right in the middle of the holiday Tuesday (12 pm).

The end of the fiesta

The Once upon a time Carnival ends on Saturday 29 February, with a grand cavalcade which the youngest children can watch in its early stages, although later the celebrations turn into something more suitable for the grown-ups. And on 1 March, with the traditional Sardine’s Funeral, where the widows weep over the death of Carnival (Don Carnal), and which also leaves from León y Castillo Street at 7 pm, heading out to Las Canteras Beach, where the fantasy fish is set fire to, and the fireworks dazzle on the beach.