The Las Palmas Carnival in 2025 has taken in €8 million: it's a disaster. It's a festival copied from Tenerife and southern Gran Canaria; but in 2025, things have become clearer, as the 400.000-attendance barrier for the Maspalomas Parade (the figure of 370.000 initially offered excludes attendees at the end of the route at the Yumbo) has put things back in their place. Just look at the scheduled airline seats on flights to the Las Palmas and Maspalomas events to see the impact of both. Airlines from the Peninsula are overbooked to travel to Maspalomas.
Among the new imitations that Las Palmas is preparing for 2026, the most notable is that the floats for its anti-carnival must adopt the theme chosen in the island's capital. In the south of Gran Canaria, more and more voices are rising with a common sentiment: fed up with Las Palmas. Fed up with feeling that important decisions are made in offices in Las Palmas, oblivious to our daily reality in the south of Gran Canaria. Las Palmas seems to dictate the course of everything, as they have tried to do with the vacation rental market, ignoring the needs of the tourist heart of the Canary Islands, which requires the departure of apartment owners who live in the heart of the destination.
Maspalomas, Playa del Inglés, and the entire south face unique challenges every day: from the impact of mass tourism to the need for sustainable infrastructure and basic services that match the region's uniqueness. However, priorities are set more with the capital in mind than tourism in southern Gran Canaria.
The economic capital of the Canary Islands, to protect its Las Palmas carnival, had already imposed this measure in an attempt to avoid interference in the south of the island. Nevertheless, 400.000 people filled the streets of Playa del Inglés during the massive Maspalomas International Carnival 2025 parade. Security was guaranteed by more than 500 officers and 30 video surveillance cameras, while a team of medical personnel and a small hospital on Grecia Street provided medical care.
