| February 6th, 2005 01:54 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Rio in grip of carnival fever
The carnival in Rio de Janeiro is in full swing, with hordes of revellers pouring onto the streets.
During the five days of the world's biggest party, 145 registered processions will samba their way through the Brazilian city, although the actual number may be twice that.
More than 750,000 tourists are expected to visit the Brazilian city during the carnival to watch the dazzling parades by top samba schools and join in the fun.
And it is not just Rio in the grip of carnival fever. Colombia has also launched into four days of revelry, with an opening parade that attracted a million people to the city of Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast.
More than 30,000 dancers and hundreds of multi-coloured floats snaked through the streets to the sound of pulsating drums.
Frivolity Is Hard Work at Carnival Time in Brazil
Paulo Fridman for The New York Times
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, Feb. 4 - For big corporations, Brazil's famed Carnival is an annual magnet for millions of dollars in sponsorships, just as the Super Bowl is in the United States. And it, too, has been criticized as an orgy of crude commercialism.
But for thousands of smaller businesses, the pre-Lenten party, which begins this weekend, is a make-or-break proposition. From travel agents to confetti manufacturers and costume retailers, companies large and small have spent the last few months ringing up sales at a frenetic pace, while just about everyone else in Brazil was leisurely enjoying summer vacation.
"Carnival is a lot more than just fun - it's big business," said an exhausted Elias Ayoub, who owns a department store chain in São Paulo called Palácio das Plumas, or the Palace of Feathers, which stocks more than 15,000 items associated with Carnival.
"But for me, Carnival is already over," he said. "I just supply the whole circus and let everyone else do all the partying."
Since mid-October, Mr. Ayoub's stores have been running on all cylinders, selling everything from beads and exotic feathers to glitter and cloth to Carnival connoisseurs countrywide.
Though Mr. Ayoub, like the owners of most privately held concerns in Brazil, will not divulge sales figures, he says he gets about half of his annual revenue in the four months leading up to the festival. Much of that, he adds, comes from bulk sales to the groups known as samba schools, which spend the equivalent of millions of dollars annually on lavish costumes and flashy Carnival floats.
Many of Mr. Ayoub's biggest customers come from Rio de Janeiro. The parade there, with its scantily clad dancers and thunderous drum beats, is the global face of Carnival, even though it is celebrated throughout Brazil. Over two nights, the top 14 samba schools in Rio will compete for bragging rights in front of 70,000 fans in the Sambadrome, a stadium specially built for the parade, with millions more watching on television. Flush with cash from corporate sponsors, each group spends an average of about 4 million reais, or about $1.53 million, a year on paraphernalia for the event, according to the Independent League of Samba Schools.
And, according to a recent study by the Social Democracia Sindical, a national association of labor unions, many Rio samba schools buy most of their parade material in São Paulo, Brazil's premier city in just about every category but Carnival.
"It may sound funny, but São Paulo is one of the places that benefits the most from our Carnival," said Fernando Horta, the president of Unidos da Tijuca, one of Rio's elite samba schools. "That's where the industry is."
To be sure, Rio also makes its share of money from Carnival. The city is expecting more than 770,000 visitors from around the world for this year's party, bringing in an estimated $557 million in tourism revenue, according to Riotur, the municipal tourism agency.
The flood of visitors, many of them arriving well ahead of Carnival to soak up the sun on the beach, is good news for retailers like Jorge Francisco. A former director of the Mocidade samba school, Mr. Francisco opened a Carnival paraphernalia store called Babado da Folia in downtown Rio 15 years ago in hopes of turning his hobby into a living. Though he struggles in the off-season, Mr. Francisco says he can barely keep up in the months before Carnival, which account for about 80 percent of his annual sales.
"I'm open all year round, but I probably only end up really working about five months out of the year," Mr. Francisco said. "It's not a good way to get rich, but it pays the bills."
For some companies, like Aergi Indústria e Comércio de Papel, a paper manufacturer in São Paulo State, Carnival is a chance to bolster sales at a time of year when its core business is slow. Aergi started out making packaging materials for industrial use, but over the years it branched out into the confetti business to make some extra cash during Carnival season. It now sells about 2,000 tons of confetti a year, almost all of it in the months preceding Carnival.
"In our market, the beginning of the year is always very slow," said Roberto Toledo, the company's administrative manager. "But the confetti sales more than make up for that. It's not our core business, but it is a big part of our business."
T-shirt manufacturers also carve out a niche during Carnival. This is especially true in the northeastern city of Salvador, Brazil's third-largest city, where Carnival is still an old-fashioned street party. To be allowed to dance behind the ear-splitting electric trios that play atop trucks cruising the city streets, revelers must first buy an abadá, a kind of snug-fitting, polyester T-shirt bearing the group's logo.
Loygus Camisetas, a small T-shirt manufacturer in Salvador, started making abadás a few years ago, and sales have climbed steadily since, said José Loyola Neto, the company's owner. Loygus increases its work force by about 60 percent during Carnival season, he said, raising its monthly output to about 70,000 garments from 20,000 in the off-season. This year, the company's factory has been working round the clock to keep up with the last-minute rush of orders.
"This is a crazy time of year," Mr. Loyola said. "But my revenue from December, January and February combined is almost as much as I make during the rest of the year, so it's certainly worth it."
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
| February 6th, 2005 02:34 PM |
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| Madafaka |
O melhor escola do samba Beija-Flor!  |
| February 6th, 2005 03:16 PM |
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| gorda |
Every year, I say that I am going to go to the Carnival in Río and I never do!
But, maybe some day . . .
For now, I'll watch clips of the parade on T.V. again. |
| February 6th, 2005 04:59 PM |
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| J.J.Flash |
Babies......actually I never enjoy Carnaval days, anyway I envy you dear north-american brothers and sisters.... I envy you people because of that Mardi-Gras......ohhh NEw Orleans....please....did anybody say tits!?!?! Lotsa fun down there.....
God bless ya |
| February 6th, 2005 07:55 PM |
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| gustavobala |
sao paulo, sao paulo
today "sampa´s carnival" is the same high level from Rio´s carnival
X-9 PAULSITANA is 4 block from my house...we goes to title
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| February 6th, 2005 08:17 PM |
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| Milton |
Luciana
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| February 6th, 2005 08:19 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Well I'm just sorry that I can't be down there with you'all, overindulging in various vices and debaucheries.
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
| February 6th, 2005 09:26 PM |
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| Bruno Stone |
Luciana is delicious.
AE CAMBADA BRASILEIRA, A LUCIANA É GOSTOSA PRA CARALHO NÉ NAO?? |
| February 6th, 2005 09:36 PM |
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| Soldatti |
Luciana is a BOMB... |
| February 6th, 2005 09:53 PM |
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| Madafaka |
Try to watch them on TV, tune Rede O Globo. Beija Flor will be on the 'Sambodromo' tomorrow night, around 3.30 AM (RJ Time) |
| February 7th, 2005 11:26 AM |
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| J.J.Flash |
quote:
Bruno Stone wrote:
Luciana is delicious.
AE CAMBADA BRASILEIRA, A LUCIANA É GOSTOSA PRA CARALHO NÉ NAO??
Yes indeed! |
| February 7th, 2005 11:17 PM |
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| gustavobala |
good choice madafacka, beija flor de nilopolis was champion in rio's carnival in 03 and 04, try now the 05- three times connect
luciana in sao paulo wear black, and we can see her big tits...
i wanna FUCK HER!
god...gostosa pra caraio! |
| February 8th, 2005 12:23 AM |
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| Lavendar |
I like Lucianas' attitude! What FUN! Dancin in the Streets |
| February 8th, 2005 01:41 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
sex n' drugs' n' rock n' roll.
The basic script doesn't change much over the millenium does it? |
| February 9th, 2005 03:18 PM |
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| gustavobala |
CONGRATULATIONS MADAFACKA
BEIJA FLOR IS TRI-CHAMPION BY 0,1 POINTS FROM UNIDOS DA TIJUCA
http://placaruol.uol.com.br/carnaval/2005/placar_rj.htm |
| February 9th, 2005 10:58 PM |
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| Madafaka |
quote:
gustavobala wrote:
CONGRATULATIONS MADAFACKA
BEIJA FLOR IS TRI-CHAMPION BY 0,1 POINTS FROM UNIDOS DA TIJUCA
http://placaruol.uol.com.br/carnaval/2005/placar_rj.htm
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH! Thank you for the link! We win again! |
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