Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Monday 4 July 2022. The Planet Earth Carnival is the first in the history of the festival to have been held in two stages. The celebrations in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria featured the galas and contests in the winter, when the candidates for Carnival Queen, the Drag Queens and the carnival groups took the stage in Santa Catalina Park for three weeks. It was a period of limited capacity and restrictions imposed because of the health situation. Still pending, however, were the main popular events: the daytime carnival, parades and concerts. Their moment arrived in the first weekend of July.

Thousands of carnival-goers took to the streets to enjoy the gatherings on 1, 2 and 3 July. A Parade of Carnival Prizewinners and Groups, the Great Cavalcade and a range of concerts and daytime carnival events spread around various points in the city brought together the most enthusiastic public for the festivities, at a time when domestic tourism is taking over from foreign visitors in the capital of Gran Canaria.

The event produced exceptional images, as they had never occurred before: thousands of carnival-goers who once again demonstrated their imagination when it came to putting together their costumes, with a great sense of humour and an even greater desire to join in the fun, in the strangest year of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Carnival.

The Carnival, a Festival of National Tourist Interest, has shown its ability to remain simmering beneath the surface outside its natural calendar. This is the best possible news for celebrations whose organisation requires work that continues all year round. Indeed, preparations are already underway for the next carnival, in winter 2023, an event that will be dedicated to the theme of discos and rhythms of the seventies, under the title “Studio 54”. Before that, for once, music, carnival and participants have made their presence felt in the city at the height of summer.