Visitors to Brazil will soon be able to enjoy the sexy dancers and samba music of Rio de Janeiro’s world-famous carnival all year round.
Samba City, a massive complex showcasing more than a dozen of the carnival’s best performing troupes, is due to open in September, Reuters news agency reports.
Shows and parades will be staged several times a week, offering visitors the opportunity to look behind the scenes of the spectacular annual event, which comes to a close on Ash Wednesday.
Rio tourism secretary Ruben Medina told Reuters that Samba City “would be a giant carnival dream factory and, we are sure, the city’s new tourism icon.”
The complex is being built in the port area of Rio and is costing $25 million but the tourism authorities hope this will soon be recouped. They estimate between 700,000 and a million tourists will flock to Samba City every year.
The carnival troupes, called samba schools, work all year preparing for the big event but they have to practise now in rundown warehouses.
Samba City will give them top-notch facilities and they say they are eager to move in as soon as it is built.
