São Paulo street carnival will have more than 500 parades

The party includes the pre-carnival, on the 11th and 12th of February, and the post-carnival, on the 25th and 26th of February, in addition to the long holiday from the 18th to the 21st of the same month.

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The city hall estimates that this year's party will exceed the 15 million people who were on the streets of the capital of São Paulo in 2020.

“People are really eager to play after the [Covid-19] pandemic.”
Highlighted the municipal secretary of Subprefectures, Alexandre Modonezi.

He said, however, that it will only be possible to have a final audience number after the party.

Decentralized

According to the city hall, an effort was made to encourage carnival outside the central region of the city. According to Modonezi, 48,9% of the blocks must parade in neighborhoods and peripheral areas of the city. “This represents exactly this decentralization and this incentive from the city to carnival blocks on the outskirts,” he said. 68 blocks are planned for the east zone; in the south zone, 101; and in the north zone, 76.

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At the end of last year, the Municipal Department of Culture launched a bid for R$3 million to support 300 blocks. According to the head of the ministry, Aline Torres, the objective was precisely to strengthen peripheral groups, which do not have access to sponsorship. “It was designed precisely so that we can provide assistance to these blocks, especially because they spent two years without carnival or activities. Many of these blocks hold community parties,” she explained.

According to the secretary, carnival groups occupy an increasingly larger space in the cultural and social scene of the capital of São Paulo. “We also have an understanding of the way in which samba schools were created in the city of São Paulo and today they are a sociocultural arm of the city, many blocks also perform this function. The big carnival organizers, these traditional, peripheral groups, who hold percussion workshops with young people from the outskirts, who do this social work, were greatly harmed during the two years of the pandemic,” she added.

To ensure that the groups were able to access the resources, the secretary said that training was offered to help representatives of the blocks to register for the award. A procedure that must be applied, according to it, in other actions in the folder. “A major mission of the secretariat in 2023 is to provide training so that more and more groups, collectives and carnival blocks are able to participate in our promotions”.

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The money from the public notice to support the blocks, however, has not yet been released. According to Torres, the resources are expected to be available to the groups in the coming days.

Megablocks

The so-called megablocs, which bring together more than 40 thousand people, are expected to parade at six points in the city: on Rua da Consolação (central region); on Rua Luís Dumont Villares (south zone); in Ibirapuera Park (south zone); on Avenida Faria Lima (west zone); on Avenida Marquês de São Vicente (north area) and on Rua Laguna (south area).

At these points and in all places where parades are planned, the Military Police informed that it will reinforce policing, increasing the scales and keeping the entire contingent, including those who normally perform administrative functions, on alert.

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There will be ambulances and hospital beds to guarantee medical assistance, if necessary, to revelers.

(With Brazil Agency)