The City of São Paulo announced this Monday, the 9th, new security measures for the street carnival. Municipal management agents will remain within the megablock trios in an attempt to avoid further disruption. The measure comes after overcrowding, turmoil and congestion at parades last weekend, with revelers feeling ill, the public pressed against containment bars and people climbing on eaves and chemical toilets.
There was chaos on Rua da Consolação on Sunday, 8th, due to the simultaneous concentration of two megablocks. The Skol block, whose main attraction was DJ Calvin Harris, and Acadêmicos do Baixo Augusta were scheduled to parade at the same address at similar times (one started at 11am and the other at 2pm).
On Saturday, 7th, in the Ibirapuera Park region, during the Who Asks, Askswith Ivete Sangalo, the parade was interrupted for 50 minutes due to overcrowding.
Opportunity with security!
City Hall changed the scheme for megablocks in Ibirapuera. The route on Avenida Pedro Álvares Cabral will have two more exit routes, one through the parking lot of the Legislative Assembly building and the other through Rua Abílio Soares. It was right next to Alesp where there was more pushing and shoving at Ivete’s show.
Management did not clarify whether the Consolação itinerary, which will still receive two megablocks, will have adjustments. But it determined that mobile health posts should be located within the mega-event circuit itself.
“The City Hall reiterates that 6,400 GCMs are destined for policing during Carnival, 20% more than last year. The megablock circuits also have 482 Smart Sampa cameras and 23 drones for monitoring during all parades.”
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This Monday morning, Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) classified the first weekend of revelry in the city as a “success”. “If we consider the number of people and the few occurrences, the conclusion is that it was a success,” he said in an interview with GloboNews. In his opinion, the infrastructure set up by management to serve revelers “was perfect”.
In a note on Monday night, City Hall once again said that “the pre-carnival was a success, with no serious incident involving the revelers”. “The DJ Calvin Harris parade, on Sunday, took place along the entire route of Rua da Consolação followed by thousands of people in a party atmosphere”, he declared.
Management reinforced that the contingency plan was activated and that the security forces controlled the situation. According to the administration, five people needed to be taken to hospitals, but have since been released.
Operational coordinator of the Military Police and responsible for organizing personnel at Carnival, Colonel Carlos Henrique Lucena defended the use of metal fences in the blocks, a measure required by the City Hall. “The fences are mobile precisely for this reason, to have the possibility of opening, to have the possibility of widening, to increase the flow. Therefore, they need to be mobile, to have the possibility of carrying out decompression techniques”, he told Estadão. “We are happy that there were no people seriously injured in this event (in the Consolação megablocks).”
Chaos in Consolation
The problem began with the Skol carnival block parade, which was scheduled to start at 11:30 am, with a performance by Brazilian artists Nattan, Xand Avião, Felipe Amorim and Zé Vaqueiro, on the corner of Rua da Consolação and Rua Pedro Taques. Calvin Harris would close the block with a show starting at 2pm.
Shortly after 12pm, however, the block stopped moving, there was pushing and shoving and some revelers felt sick. The artists interrupted the performance several times.
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There were revelers who clung to the gates of buildings on Rua da Consolação to get a breather; others tore down fences to occupy part of the property’s open area.
According to the City Hall, from 2:55 pm onwards, a contingency plan was activated with actions such as opening the Consolação intersections to allow the public to leave and blocking the entry of new revelers to the circuit. From that moment on, says the management, “the Metropolitan Civil Guard took over the line leading the electric trio so that it could continue without stopping”.
At around 4pm, according to the administration, “the parade was taking place in the central region without incident”. The City Hall also said that the medical posts operated to care for people who sought the service, but that there were no serious incidents recorded. At the beginning of the night, according to the Military Police and the organizers, the situation returned to normal and there were no records of serious incidents.
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Revelers reported on social media the difficulties and scenes of pre-carnival confusion. “I’ve never seen Consolação so crowded,” wrote one reveler.
