Brazil's Carnival, the annual mega party that draws hundreds of thousand of attendees from around the world, wrapped up Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro. The anything-can-happen, four-day celebration includes parades, "near-naked dancing queens, spectacularly imaginative floats, and thousands of extras." As the AP puts it: "Excesses are encouraged and the natural order of things is turned upside down — men dress as women, the poor parade as kings, rules are bent, and everyone escapes their drab daily existence for a few days of catharsis." Here's a look at the festival, by the numbers:
756,000
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$559 million
Amount of money expected to be spent by tourists
424
Number of musical acts, or blocos (mobile street parties), that have registered with the city
$5 million
Amount it can cost to produce one Carnival samba show
8,000
Number of feather-and-glitter costumes lost in a warehouse fire in February. Weeks afterward, the samba group whose outfits were destroyed put on a show that "more than made up for its material losses," according to the AP.
330
Minimum weight, in pounds, once required to be crowned as Carnival boss King Momo, the oversized character whose appearance signals the beginning of the festivities; Brazil's high rate of obesity and diabetes convinced officials to drop the condition
$12,000
Amount of money King Momo takes home every year
89 million
Number of condoms given out at this year's festival, 26 million more than last year
630,000
Estimated number of Brazilians with AIDS
25,000
Estimated number of Brazilians with AIDS who aren't aware they have the disease
95
Number of people killed in traffic accidents during the first two days of Carnival
57
Percentage of Brazilians who don't like Carnival, according to a 2004 Reuters poll.
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