Brazil — Events
New Year's Eve
Brazilians know how to party and Rio’s New Year (Reveillon) celebrations are ranked among the world’s biggest extravaganzas. This jovial city hosts musical shows in several districts to bring in the New Year, and on Copacabana Beach a crowd of over two million people is expected. Partygoers dress in white to bid farewell to the year that is ending and celebrate the arrival of the next. A fabulous display of fireworks illuminates the sky at midnight, amid much festivity, dancing and happiness.
Carnival Bahia
If you thought Carnival was only in Rio, you were wrong. Salvador’s Carnival is not as big, and you won’t find women dressed in elaborate feather costumes. Carnival Bahia is focused on everyone participating and having the biggest party possible. It covers the streets of Salvador every year for five days leading up to Ash Wednesday, with parades, music, drumming and dancing.
June Bonfire Festivals
An integral part of Brazilian folklore and culture is a New World twist on an old European tradition; coinciding with the feasts of St Anthony, St John and St Peter, June bonfire festivals are held in Rio’s squares, clubs, schools and churches. Warmly illuminated by bonfires, the events features mock country weddings, where couples leap over crackling flames, and stalls decorated with streamers and lanterns are set up to resemble village markets. Spectacular fireworks, as well as a good deal of dancing, drinking and eating, accompany this scene.
Sao Paulo LGBT Pride Parade
The Sao Paulo Gay Parade is one of the city’s major tourist events and is the highlight of a month-long program of events that includes parties, street fairs, film festivals, shows and the traditional Gay Day at Hopi Hari amusement park. The LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestite and Transsexual) Parade is the biggest event of its kind in the world, having grown from 2,000 people in 1997 to over three million people today, who gather on the streets waving rainbow flags in condemnation of homophobia, racism and sexism.
Brazilian F1 Grand Prix
Site of the final race of the Formula One season, the bumpy Interlagos Circuit is not a favorite with the drivers, but for spectators it is one of the most thrilling and vibrant of circuits. The stands are often filled with Brazilian green and yellows as locals of Sao Paulo cheer on their resident native and 2006 winner Filipe Massa. The track is 10 miles (16km) away from the city center.
Reveillon
Salvador de Bahia’s New Year celebration is the biggest in Brazil, which is a country that knows how to party. Traditionally celebrated with participants dressed in white and lighting votive candles on the beach, flowers are tossed out to sea in homage to Yemanjá, goddess of the salt waters. The entire beach is packed with revelers in the hours leading up to midnight, when an impressive fireworks show is set off. This is followed by music concerts from some of Brazil’s top artists.
Rio Carnival
Brazil’s tradition of throwing wild carnivals early in the year (usually in February or March) is one that was imported along with the colonial Portuguese, adopted and streamlined into today’s world-famous Brazilian event of the year. Carnaval stems from a Catholic Church spring thanksgiving celebration dating from the Middle Ages in Europe. Carnival is always held four or five days before Ash Wednesday and marks the beginning of Lent. When the fun-loving Portuguese colonized Brazil they instituted Carnaval as a period of abandoned merriment and street pranks.
