Other cities have already done it, like Valencia with its Fallas or Cádiz with its Carnival. Now it is the turn of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which decided to take the Carnival to next June. An unprecedented resolution in the party par excellence of the chicharrera capital. The dates that the City Council is considering for this atypical Carnival to take place are from June 4 to 26.
The mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, informed the groups yesterday of the decision to move the festival to June. He did it in a meeting that was held via Zoom, in which there were 103 people connected.
As Bermúdez explained, this decision is made in the face of the current level of contagion that is causing the sixth wave of COVID and the impossibility that in the coming weeks the current level 4 of restrictions will be lowered to others that would allow rehearsals, or the assembly of the stage, which should have started this week.
“We started planning the Carnival more than two months ago, when the omicron variant did not exist, and in all this time we have been finding out about the changes, at the same time as the rest of the population, with no margin to plan in advance. any decision”, Bermúdez began his speech.
With the arrival of the sixth wave of COVID, as explained by the mayor, they have had to make decisions, always to guarantee the safety of people, while also being able to celebrate a party in which more than 9,000 people are involved. “At the moment, the data has taken us to level 4, and the forecast of the Government of the Canary Islands is that Tenerife will continue at that level until the end of the month. That makes going back to rehearsals practically impossible, and, even if it were lowered to level 3, it would still be very difficult to maintain the group meetings”, pointed out the mayor.
The municipal councilor continued detailing that in a scenario like the current one “we have decided to move the Carnival to a scenario with less uncertainty than that of June”, to add that it is “an unprecedented decision” and defends that “the transfer is a way to save the Carnival”.
In addition, he insisted on the message that he has been defending during these months and that it is none other than that “before doing nothing or doing it with restrictions, we opt for the latter.”
June or nothing
For his part, the Councilor for Fiestas, Alfonso Cabello, admitted that the “window of opportunity” to celebrate the Carnival is the month of June, if the scheduled dates arrive, the circumstances continue to be the current ones, there would be no more possible dates, which That would force its suspension.
The dates that Fiestas are considering are those that move between June 4 and 26, but there are still none assigned to the different acts, that is something that, according to Cabello, will be settled with the groups in face-to-face meetings that will take place Thursday and Friday of this week. “We will meet with the groups by modality and we will discuss with each of them what are the main difficulties that the new dates pose for them,” he said.
“In our case, due to specific guidelines from the mayor, we have previously met with the representatives of all the groups electronically, since we understand that it is essential, before publicly communicating it to the public, to test with those who really make the new editions possible. proposed dates”, emphasized Cabello.
Likewise, he made special reference to children: “We have to see when their contests are best for children’s groups, because we understand that it is a month with exams.” Designers are also the other group that can be most affected by the transfer of dates.
Cabello went on to defend that “our Carnival, with an economic impact on the city of more than 32 million euros, requires a thorough assessment, since we are talking, in most cases, about the economy of many families.”
For his part, according to the mayor, it will be in the month of April, “after Easter”, when it will be possible to really know if the new dates are feasible. “For everything to fit together, the groups should be rehearsing by April 18, if on that date we have another variant of COVID or there is a new wave, that will be when we will really know what is going to happen with Carnival,” he said.
Outside the Fairgrounds
Precisely one of the things that the new dates will allow is that galas and contests take to the streets. This was pointed out by Bermúdez, who explained that “our intention is to create a stable carnival venue, as we did with the May Festivities, that is something in which we have experience.”
The possible locations to host a stage with the characteristics of the Carnival are the Parque Marítimo car park or the esplanade of the quay, where the Christmas Concert is held, both on the land of the Port Authority, with which the necessary permits would also have to be negotiated. . In addition, just in the month of June, the Fairground already has its own programming, such as the celebration of two concerts, which would make the assembly of the stage and the acts of the 2022 Carnival unfeasible.
The mayor concluded his speech by pointing out that the idea, therefore, is to ensure at least the celebration of galas and competitions. “If the evolution of the pandemic allowed us to go to a celebration in the street, which I doubt, believe me that nothing would make me more excited,” he added.
