Carnaval comes to Brazil!
Teams across Brazil gathered in-office to celebrate the country’s most popular holiday – Carnaval do Brasil!
Curious to learn more about the origins of the world-famous Brazilian carnival?
Read on for a bit of history on the festivities, courtesy of Global Operations Head, Felipe Silva:
The Carnival of Brazil (Portuguese: Carnaval do Brasil ) is an annual festival held the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. During Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival", from carnelevare, "
Carnival is the most popular holiday in Brazil and has become an event of huge proportions. Except for industrial production, retail establishments such as malls, and carnival-related businesses, the country unifies completely for almost a week and festivities are intense, day and night, mainly in coastal cities Rio de Janeiro's carnival alone drew 6.9 million people in 2023, with 800,000 being foreigners.
Historically, its origins can be traced to the Portuguese Age of Discoveries when their caravels passed regularly through Madeira island, a territory which already celebrated emphatically its carnival season, and where they were loaded with goods but also people and their ludic and cultural expressions.
