The city said farewell to the 50th anniversary of the festival with the symbolic burning of the sardine at Las Canteras
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Friday 6 March 2026. The Carnival has bid farewell to its 50th anniversary edition by officially announcing the theme for the 2027 Carnival: Music.
The announcement came on the first day of March, after a five-week programme and the burning of the sardine at Las Canteras, the final event of this year’s Carnival and the symbolic send-off to the city’s most important festival.
This leave-taking was followed closely by Carnival devotees. The fish, a beautiful five-metre-long sardine in the character of Elvis, covered the distance from the Metropole to the beach. There, along the avenue and on the seashore, thousands of people were waiting, dressed as widows and mourners, wailing and laughing as they began the countdown to the next edition, to be held in January 2027.
In the light of what has been revealed, it will be a year eagerly awaited by the carnival-goers, who were responsible for the vote that decided on the forthcoming theme. Because music is part of the very essence of the festivity. The pulse of Carnival will therefore be felt in a celebration with no geographical, temporal or gender boundaries. The festival cannot be understood without the rhythm of the groups, vibrant stages and the intergenerational unity that music arouses. It will also be a tribute to this universal language that connects cultures and turns the events into a collective experience.