Santa Cruz celebrated the final street parties of Carnival 2023 in style, as 420,000 people flooded into the city during the day and night for more than fifty performances over 18 uninterrupted hours of music and dance finishing Piñata Saturday at six o’clock this Sunday morning.
The mayor of Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez, said this morning that " after some difficult years in the celebration of our most international party, this edition has seen an explosion of people eager to experience the best Carnival in the world."
"With the number of people we have seen come to the city, we have managed the influx of vehicles, hotels, and holiday homes have been full, bars and restaurants have been full, this year’s carnival will be remembered as one of the biggest in history.”
The Emergency Services confirmed that there have been isolated incidents, but most have been related to over consumption of alcohol, and nobody was seriously hurt during yesterday’s celebrations.
According to data from the Local Police, 420,000 people entered the ‘Carnival Quadrangle’ over the 18 hours yesterday, with 103,000 vehicles entering the city between 9am and 8pm, finally coming to ‘gridlock’ around 9pm.
In addition to this, public transport was operating at full capacity bringing people in and out of the city, and there was also an influx of people (both passengers and crew) from several cruise ships that were docked in the Santa Cruz Port.
Overall, this year’s Santa Cruz Carnival with a New York theme, has been deemed a resounding success, and planning for 2024 will start very soon!
