They say travel is learning and probably the best education you can get and we agree. Most people think travel is either for leisure or relaxation but we beg to differ. There’s so much to learn from people and their culture.

On the 16th of February, the Cross River State government sent a delegation to Brazil to attend the Rio Carnival. The aim? To study/learn from the Rio carnival and adopt some ideas for the Calabar Carnivals. The Rio carnival is what other carnivals aspire to be! Its organization, revenue generation, management, logistics and crowd control measures is probably the best out there.

“Carnival is a Western Christian and Greek Orthodox festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent).”- Chisholm Hugh

RIO CARNIVAL

The Rio de Janeiro city was full of live at the Rio Carnival and the world literally gathers in Rio to celebrate the world’s biggest carnival. The carnival rakes in an average of two million attendees per day from all over the world. The event starts exactly a week to Ash Wednesday marking the start of Lent period. During this period, many events are held with Samba Parade at Sambadrome being the major attraction.

CALABAR CARNIVAL

The Governor of Cross Rivers state has shown keen interest in taking the Calabar carnival up one notch most especially as a revenue spinner. To achieve this, contingents comprising of leaders of bands and stakeholders were sent to study to the Rio carnival. They participated in the parade and noted a few things that could be adopted for subsequent Calabar carnivals.

The purpose of this is to make the state plan adequately for the growth of the next Calabar carnival. At the last carnival, the Governor promised to make it a source of generating revenue. Introducing new concepts for the big event will attract more participants than which will eventually boast revenue.

While speaking on the readiness for Rio carnival at the airport, the cross rivers state commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Mr Eric Anderson said

“We are excited to be part of the Rio carnival in 2018 because it is the biggest in the world. As a tourism state in Nigeria that takes carnival as its flagship event, we are going to learn from the world best to put up a better event for Africa starting this year”. Our aim is to see how to better Calabar carnival in the areas of organization, promotion, logistics and revenue generation. This is the first time Cross River is participating in this carnival.”
 

Its an interesting development which we are oh so excited about. There’s no better way to learn that from experts in the field. We already see the Calabar carnival 2018 being a hit if things observed at the Rio carnival are incorporated in the event. You can get more information about the event for this year here.