Carnaval Chicharrero is an open, independent archive of the history of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Carnival: every edition, its contests and who won them, with the groups, the Queens and the people behind each award.
The memory of the Santa Cruz Carnival was scattered: an official register of award winners in PDF that runs up to 2011, a Wikipedia annex for the following years, newspaper archives and the memories of murga and comparsa members and fans. Finding out who won the murga contest in 1986, or how many Queens a designer has dressed, meant cross-checking several sources. This project brings them together in one place, organises them and links them: each award leads to the page of its group, its designer and the edition in which it was given.
Carnival is also about having an opinion. That is why every jury verdict has its own debate, where anyone can say whether it seemed fair and who should have won.
The data from the sources has been extracted, reviewed and unified: the same group sometimes appears under different names depending on the year (with or without the article, with a sponsor's name...), and those variants are merged into a single page that keeps the aliases. Figures (titles, winning streaks, rankings) are calculated automatically from the awards, and the texts on each group, person and edition page are generated from the same data, so they update themselves with every new verdict.
We are careful about what we claim: we say “first recorded prize” rather than “first prize in its history”, because the sources have known gaps, including costumes, floats and decorated cars after 2011, some recent special prizes and the 2020 children's murgas. Between 1937 and 1964 there was no Queen election, so those years are not a gap.
The articles in the Carnival guide are written from these same sources and cite theirs at the end.
Carnaval Chicharrero is not an official website and is not linked to the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, its Festivals Board or any group. The names of groups, Queens and designers appear because they are in the public award records. The site is funded by advertising, which is only personalised if you give your consent in the cookie notice.
Anyone can read the entire archive without signing up. With a free account you can follow your favourite groups, get alerts about their awards and performances, and give your opinion on the verdicts. Opinions are about the jury's decision, never about people, and they are moderated: insults, personal data and content that breaks the terms of use are removed.
Is an award missing, a name misspelled, or do you have a photo of a group? Every group page and every year page has an “Is something missing?” button that sends us the correction directly with its context; it is the fastest way. For anything else (press, collaborations, image rights or content removal) write to us at info@carnavalchicharrero.com.