[edit] The venue
The Sambadrome was designed by
Oscar Niemeyer and built in 1984. It consists of 700 m stretch of street converted into a permanent parade ground with bleachers built on either side for spectators. Its capacity is 65,000.
It lies quiet for most of the year until December, when the samba schools begin holding technical rehearsals there, leading up to Carnival itself.
[edit] The Carnival parade events
The official Carnival parades take place just before the start of
Lent. They are held for four consecutive nights, during which schools parade one after another from 8pm until the morning.
Grupo de Acesso A samba schools are hosted on Saturday,
Grupo Especial on Sunday and Monday and
Grupo de Acesso B on Tuesday. The
Grupo Especial nights are by far the biggest attractions. The parades are televised nationally and are watched by large audiences.
Each samba school has a preset amount of time (80 minutes) to parade from one end of the Sambadrome to the other with all its thousands of dancers, its drum section (
bateria), and a number of floats. Each school has its own unique qualities according to its own traditions. Schools are graded by a jury, and the competition is ferocious. On
Ash Wednesday (
quarta-feira de cinzas), grades are gathered and one school is declared the winner. A
Desfile de Campeões (Parade of Champions) is held the following Saturday featuring the five winning samba schools in the
Grupo Especial category.