Carnival in Gran Canaria is an enormous event.  Let us re-iterate – an absolutely enormous event.  Why? –  The perfect climate? our people? our love of party? our love of celebration? our energy? our love of music? our love of tradition?  Our love to dress up?  It could be answered with all of the above, but one thing is clear – Carnival and Gran Canaria go perfectly hand in hand.

Across the island, throughout the various municipalities, there are various (and numerous) colourful and energetic celebrations and activities, spanning a 6-week period.

The original reason for celebrating Carnival is to eat, drink and generally over-indulge before purging all vices for Lent. So, because the dates of Lent & Easter (Semana Santa) change every year, so do the dates of Carnival. The dates of Carnival can fall any time between February and March.

Carnival

The Carnival of Las Palmas is one of the most famous Carnivals in Spain (and locals would argue as one of the best in the world). Events include the Queen Gala, Draq Queen Gala, Los Indianos (a crazy event of throwing flour over each other), the main parade, -viewed by around 200,000 people every year along with its six kilometre route across the city and the Burial of the Sardine, a parade representing a funeral procession ending with the burning of a symbolic sardine in the sea celebrating the end of carnival

Maspalomas Carnival certainly gives the Las Palmas carnival celebrations a good run for their money and is held after the festivities of Las Palmas have taken place (so you can enjoy all of them!). Celebrating around 9 days of carnival activities which also includes children’s carnival, carnival queen, drag queen, senior carnival queen, the main parade and burial of the sardine, all focused around the Maspalomas beach and Yumbo shopping centre.

The last of the island’s celebrations are in the areas of Mogán, where we do it all over.

Each municipal has its own theme – for example 2019 theme Las Palmas was “One night in Rio” and Maspalomas was “Moon” celebrating the 50thanniversary of the first man on the moon, and Telde´s theme was Paris.

The yearly themes indicate the costumes you may see during any of the activities and any of the events across the island are worth visiting just to enjoy the atmosphere and see the amazingly inventive costumes of patrons and the crowd alike – as we said, we love to dress up!