Brazil's most open celebration keeps its best nights behind closed doors. Three of them happen on the Sapucaí, and the rest happen around it.
The house reading
Rio sells Carnival as a street party. The nights people remember are the best guarded.
Twelve Special Group schools share three nights on the Marquês de Sapucaí. Where you watch from decides what you see: the sector, the height, the distance from the drum recess and from the judges. Two boxes with the same name can be two entirely different nights.
Around the avenue there is a second Carnival. Two balls at the Copacabana Palace, a box that is never sold, workshops where the floats are built over months, and wings you enter dressed as part of the story. That is the one we look after.
Date
7 to 9 February 2027
Where
Marquês de Sapucaí, Rio de Janeiro
Access
Boxes, the avenue and the balls
In numbers
Where to stay
Drawn by the LIESA at the Cidade do Samba. The school that opens and the one that closes each night change the hour worth being in your seat, and that decides the box.
Friday and Saturday5 and 6
The schools competing for promotion to the top tier. Calmer nights, good for a first look at the avenue before the Special Group.
Sunday7
Maricá makes its debut in the Special Group, opening the night as 2026 Série Ouro champion.
Monday8
The most balanced of the three, with two schools of long tradition in the middle of the running order.
Tuesday9
Viradouro arrives as 2026 champion. Mangueira closes the avenue with “Oyá por nós”, a tribute to the orixá Iansã.
Saturday13
The top schools return without the pressure of the competition. For many, the most beautiful night of the week.
Official running order released by the LIESA. Times confirmed closer to the date.
What we arrange
None of them can be settled at the last minute. Boxes, balls and costumes each have their own sale and sell out at different moments. Two are never sold at all: they depend on an invitation. We follow each one on its own clock.
There are dozens along the avenue, and the difference is the sector. Sector 2 faces the judges beside the first drum recess; sector 8 sits opposite the recess where the drums stop and play. We choose by what you want to see, and only then by the line-up.
The most closed box on the avenue, and the only one that cannot be bought: in 2026 it took sector 5 and admitted members of the Alma club only. The soundtrack is electronic, with names like Black Coffee, and the room is what you would find at a private party, facing the schools.
Access: through club membership or a member’s invitation.
Prices: not disclosed.
Around eighteen hundred guests at the Copacabana Palace, with a new theme each year; in 2026 the dress code was Tropical Couture or black tie. No tickets are sold: the list belongs to the magazine and its partner brands. It opens the season, and usually falls on the weekend before Carnival.
Access: by invitation only.
2027 date: not yet announced.
Saturday 6 February, 10pm to 5am, at the Copacabana Palace. Costume or black tie, and the door turns away anyone outside the code. It is the most contested night in the city, and it usually sells out before Carnival begins.
Guests 18 and over.
No ticket compares with crossing the Sapucaí from the inside. Schools sell costumes for their commercial wings from the end of the year; riding a float as a featured figure is another conversation, negotiated directly with the school.
At the Cidade do Samba, the floats are built over months. A visit with the people who make the parade shows the scale of what will cross the avenue in little more than an hour. In January the technical rehearsals fill the Sapucaí, and they are the best way to learn a school’s samba before the night.
Visits: arranged as each school allows.
Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon are far enough from the avenue for Carnival traffic to matter. A whole house or a hotel, with a driver who knows the closed roads, and the metro to Praça Onze as plan B, which on some nights becomes plan A.
Stay: the earlier, the more choice by the sea.
The parades start late and end with the sunrise. The days ask for something else: a table, the beach, a boat on the bay, and the street parties worth your time, chosen carefully among hundreds that are not.
Itinerary: built around the nights you choose.
What we say upfront
Boxes, balls and costumes are sold by third parties, and Camarote Alma and the Vogue Ball depend on invitations we do not promise. We confirm in writing what is secured before any payment.
Images
Photographs under free licence (Creative Commons and public domain), credited on the credits page.
In Rio, everyone sees Carnival. Few see where it is made.
Get in touchRather a different Carnival? See S.O.M. Festival in Trancoso and the whole year.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on the date and on what you want. In the proposal we confirm in writing only what is already secured. When something still rests with third parties, we say so plainly rather than promise it.
There is no price list, because each trip is built once. The figure depends on the access category, the stay and the number of guests. The proposal itemises everything, with no obligation.
Yes. Groups change the logistics and sometimes open doors that do not exist for two people: a whole house, a private table, a boat. Tell us the number when you write.
Event calendars change, and that is not ours to control. When they do, we rebuild whatever can be rebuilt and tell you at once what is refundable and what is not, according to each supplier’s rules.
