YouTube Goes Wild In Brazil

YouTube’s Carnaval channel is going to Brazil for Carnaval.

The country’s most famous holiday, Carnaval is an annual festival held in the early spring 46 days before Easter. With its roots in the pagan tradition of Saturnalia, Carnaval means a last chance to indulge before the season of religious discipline known as Lent. In other words, it is a huge, week long party. The country stops completely for almost a week and festivities are intense, day and night. According to Wikipedia, “the consumption of beer accounts for 80% of annual consumption” and “the government distributes condoms and launches awareness campaigns at this time to prevent the spread of AIDS.”

From the streets of Salvador, Bahia, one of the largest cities in Brazil (and carnival-rival only to sister-city, Rio de Janeiro), the YouTube channel will offer live feeds of Carnaval from Thursday, March 3 to Thursday, March 8. According to the YouTube blog, as part of the transmission line-up, you’ll be able to:

• Watch many of the city’s most popular carnival bands (called trio elétricos) including Ivete Sangalo and other Carnaval artists performing to the rhythms of African-influenced axé music in the midst of the enormous block parties unique to Salvador’s version of the Brazilian carnival
• Feel the energy of the celebration through street-site coverage from different parts of the city throughout the six-day festival
• Access video-clips of music, greatest hits, practices and performances from the festival uploaded to YouTube in high-definition

And on Saturday, February 19 at 15:30 ET (18:30 Brasília time), YouTube is broadcasting a live transmission of the Carnaval rehearsal of Ivete Sangalo, one of the most popular singers of the Brazilian Salvador festival.