TDSounds

Who Administers Rio Carnival?

The samba schools that parade in the Rio Carnival are organised into a number of groups that participate in a league. Schools are promoted and demoted between the groups every year, up and down the league.   It’s all  administered by three different organisations, which each receives some state funding through Riotur, the Rio tourist department.  Rio de Janeiro’s City Hall also passes regulations and laws governing the parades in the sambodrómo.

1. The AESCRJ

(Association of Samba Schools of the City of Rio de Janeiro). It ran all of the groups in the leagues of samba schools in Rio de Janeiro from 1953 till 1984, and still runs the 4 lower groups.

2. LIESA

(Independent League of Samba Schools.....) The samba schools in the top group, then Grupo A1, split off and formed their own league in 1984, the year that the sambodrómo was completed. LIESA runs the parades of the samba schools of Grupo Especial, the top league.

3. LESGA

(Access League of Samba Schools). In 2008 the samba schools in the second group (then Grupo A) also decided to break away from the original AESCRJ to administer their own group. The dust is still settling from this. Grupo A has been renamed the Grupo do Acesso, and its samba schools parade in the sambodromo on the Saturday of carnival

SO: At the moment (for Carnaval 2010):

Grupo Especial: LIESA – sambodromo, Sunday and Monday
Grupo A (Acesso): LESGA- sambodrómo, Saturday
Grupo B (RJ1):AESCRJ- sambodromo, Tuesday
Grupo C (RJ2): AESCRJ – Intendente Margalhes, Sunday
Grupo D (RJ3): AESCRJ -  Intendente Margalhes, Monday
Grupo E (RJ4 AESCRJ - Intendente Margalhes, Tuesday