Carnival in Uruguay: How Montevideo's Forty Days Work

The order below repeats every year. The city fixes the exact nights each season and publishes them on its carnival page.

Late January: the Desfile Inaugural

The season opens on a Thursday at the end of January with the Desfile Inaugural, a parade along Avenida 18 de Julio from Plaza Independencia to Plaza Cagancha, starting at 20:00. Groups from all five contest categories march, joined by floats, cabezudos (the oversized carnival heads) and the queens of carnival, of the Llamadas and of the samba schools. Most people watch free from the pavement.

Paid seating is sold through the Abitab network, with boxes at Plaza Cagancha. The parade is also broadcast on the city's TV Ciudad and Antel TV channels, so a screen works as a fallback if you would rather skip the crowds.

Early February: the Desfile de Llamadas

The Llamadas is the parade that gives carnival in Uruguay its sound. It runs over two nights in early February along Isla de Flores through Barrio Sur and Palermo, with more than 2,500 drums and more than 6,000 people marching the 10 blocks between Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz and Minas. Only comparsas, the candombe groups, take part.

The first night features the best-placed groups of the previous year, the second night the groups that passed the admission round. Tourist boxes with hosts, toilets and security are sold along the route, and paid seats line the street. Isla de Flores closes to traffic on parade days, with parking bans on nearby streets from 8:00, so plan to arrive on foot.

Our candombe guide explains the drum tradition behind it.

February into March: the Concurso Oficial

About fifty groups compete in rounds at Teatro de Verano through February and into part of March, in the official contest that the inaugural parade opens and the final verdict closes. Tickets are sold in advance at Abitab outlets, and any remainder goes on sale each night at the theatre box office. Seats are numbered, so a ticket buys you a fixed place in the open-air stand.

Bring a layer, because the theatre is open-air by the river. Rain moves a night to another date rather than cancelling it, so confirm the schedule the same evening before you set out.

Teatro de Verano Ramón Collazo

Teatro de Verano is an open-air amphitheatre built in the old stone quarries of Parque Rodó. It opened on 15 January 1944 with the Original Ballet Russe, took the name of the carnival figure Ramón Collazo in 1987, and gained a new vault in 2006, built in Eladio Dieste's reinforced ceramic system after the storm of 2005 damaged the previous roof. It is the main seat of the official carnival contest, which is why the theatre matters to any visitor planning a carnival night.

The stand faces the stage under the open sky, so the same rule applies as for any night out by the river: carry a layer, and check the city page if rain threatens.

Tablados, the Neighbourhood Stages

Tablados are stages set up in clubs and squares across the city, where the contest groups perform their shows outside the theatre. Groups play several tablados in a single night, moving from one stage to the next. The city also runs escenarios populares, stages at affordable prices, and mobile stages that tour the barrios, so a night of carnival can be found well beyond the centre.

Tablados during the season have appeared at the Velódromo Municipal, Club Malvín, the Rural del Prado and the Museo del Carnaval. A tablado night stacks several groups in a row, which makes it the best one-night choice for a visitor. You hear a murga, a comparsa and a parodista in the same evening, among a largely local crowd.

Murga

A murga is a choir of 13 singers led by a stage director, backed by three percussionists on bombo, platillos and redoblante, the drum kit created by José Ministeri in 1918. The driving rhythm is called marcha camión. The show satirises politics, sport and television, and it always runs in four parts: presentación, popurrí, cuplés and despedida.

That structure is how a visitor without Spanish follows it. You know exactly where you are in the show, and the farewell song is the emotional high point even if you miss every joke. Murga was born from the 1909 visit of a zarzuela troupe from Cádiz, whose Murga La Gaditana inspired the first Uruguayan murga, 'La Gaditana que se va'.

Watch for the four parts and clap at the right moments.

Comparsas de Negros y Lubolos

These are the candombe groups, a comparsa built around a cuerda of drummers, dancers and the old carnival characters. Candombe carries the African Uruguayan tradition that shapes the whole Llamadas parade, and UNESCO inscribed it on the Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2009. Lubolos were people of European descent who blackened their faces to join the comparsas, a practice recorded from the 1870s.

The official contest for negros y lubolos has run since 1905, making it one of the oldest parts of the carnival programme. A comparsa set is drums first: a tablado puts you a few metres from the cuerda, while the Llamadas boxes give a seat along the parade route. Our candombe page covers the rhythm and the Sunday drum calls.

Parodistas, Humoristas and Revistas

Parodistas, on stage since 1939, stage a full parody of a book, a film or a historical figure, and they are among the biggest draws of the contest. Humoristas, a category since 1946, mix song, dance and recitation in shorter, looser shows. Revistas, the oldest of the three categories at 1934, put dance first.

Knowing the difference helps you pick your night at Teatro de Verano. If you want spectacle and costumes, aim for a parodistas night. If you want movement and colour without worrying about the words, a revistas night travels best across a language barrier.

The five categories side by side, as the city and the contest rules describe them.

October and November: the Auditions

Groups earn their carnival places months before the first parade. In October the Llamadas de Admisión take place in the Prado, and 23 comparsas qualified for the next Llamadas at the most recent round. In November the Prueba de Admisión brings 34 groups to Teatro de Verano over seven nights, competing for places in the official contest.

These admission nights are real carnival shows with everything at stake, played at local scale. If your trip falls in the southern spring, an audition night gives you an evening of murga and comparsas without the peak-season crowds. Check the city's carnival page for the exact nights of each round.

Murga Joven and Carnaval de las Promesas

November also belongs to the next generation. The Encuentro de Murga Joven, a festival of new and young murgas, runs at the Las Duranas cultural centre with free entry. The Carnaval de las Promesas is the equivalent stage for performers up to 18 years old.

Free entry makes Murga Joven the easiest way to hear a full murga show on a November trip, before the season has officially begun. The city announces each edition on its carnival page, which is where to find the nights.

Any Month: the Museum and the Show

If you visit outside the season, three things put carnival in front of you anyway. The Museo del Carnaval by the port explains the costumes, the drums and the categories, which makes any later show easier to read. The candombe and tango dinner show at $107 runs year-round and delivers candombe drummers, tango and folklore with a three-course dinner. The private walk of the old city at $129 per group has a candombe drum class variant open to all levels and kids. Cruise passengers can also take the shared city tour that covers candombe's roots at $39.20, a 3-4 hour loop from the port terminal.

Carnival in Montevideo began in the 19th century as water fights from balconies, thrown over three holiday days, before the authorities took charge of organising the celebrations. The first official comparsa contest took place on 16 February 1874 on a stage in Plaza Matriz, with 35 comparsas taking part, 11 of them Black groups, a measure of how central the African Uruguayan community was from the start. The first comparsa, Raza Africana, appeared around 1865.

Murga arrived in 1909, inspired by a visiting troupe from Cádiz. The groups organised their own union, DAECPU, in 1952, and the first Desfile de Llamadas marched in 1956. Under the 1973-1985 dictatorship carnival became a focus of resistance despite censorship.

The national government declared carnival of National Interest in 2007. It is considered the longest carnival in the world at about forty days.

February puts carnival and beach season on the same weeks, so book a base early from our pick of Montevideo hotels, ideally near Centro or the Rambla for late nights. Carnival overlaps with beach season, and January is the warmest month, so check the weather and leave room for the beaches between shows. The inaugural parade starts at 20:00 and the stage shows run at night, which fits the city's own nightlife rhythm.

Pay restaurant bills with a foreign card and the VAT cut, in force until 30 April 2027, takes 9 percentage points off late dinners. Keep the usual city sense after dark, and read our safety page. For the daytime hours, work from things to do in Montevideo.