The Olympic Carnival enters the week of the Queen

The Carnival dedicated to the Olympic Games in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria enters a week with a clear leading lady: its Queen. Friday 28 February, at 9 pm local time, is the big night. From that moment, nine candidates will compete in one of the major galas on the programme. It is a classic event in the city’s festivities that has been present since the Carnival was revived at the end of the 1970s. And it closes an extended weekend that concludes on Carnival Tuesday.

The Carnival Queen evening, broadcast on local, national and international television via Television Española and Televisión Canaria, captures the attention of the public who follow the festival, to enjoy the work of the best designers of the costumes displayed by the candidates on stage, pure carnivalesque art that the hopefuls wear as they parade in pursuit of their dream: to be crowned Queen of the festivities and become their ambassador.

The night always provides spectacular images, both of the show taking place on stage and of the display of imagination when it comes to dressing the young candidates. Though few are more emotional than those of the final coronation, the moment when the new monarch takes her sceptre and is proclaimed in front of an audience that always fills Santa Catalina Park to capacity on these occasions.

Carnival Nights

The election of the Queen marks the start of an intense weekend in the setting for the celebrations. And on the same evening it is followed by the first of the Carnival Nights, which takes place in Plaza Manuel Becerra, Plaza de La Luz and Calle Eduardo Benot: in other words, in an area of influence of the working-class district of La Isleta, the cradle of the modern Carnival in the capital of Gran Canaria.

More than a hundred refreshment stalls take over this area for the enjoyment of a crowd of revellers in fancy dress, experiencing the most authentic Carnival: the one in the street. This is when the popular festivities really come into their own. In this first instalment, they will last from 11 pm to 4 am.

And the fun will continue at midday the following day, Saturday 1 March, with an Inaugural Parade, starting in Doramas Park and heading along Calle Pío XII, in the Ciudad Jardín district, until it reaches the Central Market, in the Alcaravaneras neighbourhood. The winners of the contests held up to this point (the Junior Queen , the Grande Dame and the Carnival Queen herself ) lead one of the first popular processions on the programme, in an ideal event for entering into the spirit of the Carnival and enjoying it as it passes.

Daytime Carnival

Shortly afterwards, from 2 pm to 10 pm, the Daytime Carnival opens in the city, in Santa Catalina Park and Plaza de Canarias. This is another of those occasions for enjoying the music and the atmosphere, in a great celebration of fancy dress. And at a more suitable time of day for a family audience, although on these occasions all kinds of revellers answer the call.

Saturday night will also be a Carnival Night, a bit longer than the first: from 9 pm to 5 am on Sunday morning, in the same setting of La Isleta and with the same enthusiasm.

The Choreographic Festival

One of the events that attracts the largest turnout is reserved for Sunday 2 March, with a huge family audience in attendance. This is the Choreographic Festival, which takes place from 12 noon in Santa Catalina Park, with performances by hundreds of children and young people in groups wearing fancy costumes giving of their best in enthusiastic dance routines. This is one of those times of great comings and goings and expectancy on the festival stage, and it is one of the biggest draws in the city’s Carnival.

The week concludes on that same Sunday with another major event: the International Body-Painting Contest. This competition, which is well worth seeing, has acquired worldwide prestige and attracts participants from a number of places in Spain and abroad. The standard is impressive and it is undoubtedly one of the great attractions of the modern Carnival, both for the local audience and for visitors.

Carnival Tuesday

That is not the end of the long weekend of festivities, which extends until Carnival Tuesday. Before this, however, there will be another night of revelry, on Monday 3 February in Plaza Manuel Becerra, Plaza de La Luz and Calle Eduardo Benot, from 8 pm to 5 am, continuing the succession of nights in a great festive sequence .

And on Carnival Tuesday itself it will be the youngest participants who take centre stage. Because that is the date, 4 March, chosen to celebrate the Children’s Parade, which starts from Plaza Manuel Becerra, in La Isleta, at 12 noon and concludes in Avenida José Mesa y López, one of the main open-air shopping areas in the capital of Gran Canaria.

The floats and the children’s groups are responsible for taking on a leading role in this event, which is attended by a large number of spectators, mostly families. Another designed for the same audience is the Family Carnival, which will be held afterwards in Santa Catalina Park and Plaza de Canarias, from 2 pm to 10 pm. This will certainly involve more music, more festivity and more costumes, on a day that is traditionally always one of the great highlights of the programme. And there will still be more Carnival to come.