Their Majesties the Three Wise Men arrive this afternoon in Madrid loaded with peace, gifts and sweets, tons of sweets, to distribute among the thousands of children. the ride recover this 2023 normality and splendor lost after two lackluster years because of the covid pandemic.
In 2021, Melchor, Gaspar and Baltasar had to settle for an act at the Conde Duque cultural center, which the public could not attend and that was broadcast on television.
Last year, heavy rain and the wave of infections of the micron variant They also spoiled the Parade, which was held with capacity restrictions, without sweets and with online ticket reservations, which sold out in a matter of minutes.
This year their Majesties the Three Wise Men return in style under the motto of peace, accompanied by a procession of more than a thousand people distributed in 11 floats, among them their 222 pages, in addition to 300 balloons, 2,400 kilos of candies and three mechanical elephants.
The tour starts at 6:30 p.m. in the Plaza de San Juan de la Cruz in Nuevos Ministerios and tours the Paseo de la Castellana, the Plaza del Doctor Maran, the Glorieta de Emilio Castelar, the Plaza de Coln and the Paseo de Recoletos to finish in Cibeles Square around 8:45 p.m.
There, Their Majesties and the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, will read their Christmas speeches, which will be rounded off by a fireworks display with hundreds of fireworks under the musical theme Zadok the Priest, by Handel, as a soundtrack. The actor Beltrán Iraburu repeat as King Gasparafter the success of his presence in the Parade last year.
10,500 seats in the stands
The assistants will be able to place themselves in the 8,000 places distributed along the route and the other 2,500 installed in the Plaza de Cibeles, since today it will not be necessary to make a prior reservation. Community also reinforce the Metro service throughout the afternoon, so the frequencies of passage will be increased to 68% on lines 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10.
All this will be supervised by a total of 1,000 members of the City Councilamong the 400 municipal police officers, in addition to the 300 Samur-Civil Protection operatives, the staff of the Urgent Cleaning Service (Selur), the mobility agents and the volunteers who will participate in the security device.
The objective of this 2023 is that the Parade is something more than a mere Christmas parade to become a great cultural event, according to the words of the person in charge of the area of Culture, Tourism and Sport of Madrid, Andrea Levy. We want the Parade to provide Madrid with its own identity and give it international visibility that reflects the current moment in which the city is experiencing as a cultural hotbed, Levy assured GRAN MADRID.
For this reason, this ao los Reyes will be accompanied by of bands from the United States: The Panthers Marching Band, made up of 90 young students from the University of Northern Iowa, and the Marching Show Band, with 146 musicians from the Pittsburgh High School in California, who will accompany the Kings with their wind and percussion instruments. magicians.
The parade will also another nod to Italy, which is the country invited to Christmas in Madrid. For this reason, in the entourage will march the flag-wavers florentines [abanderados en castellano] of the Compagnia Bandierai degli Uffizi, whose flag-tossing is a tradition in this European country.
I work against the clock
The floats of RTVE, the English Court, the Teatro Real, Amazon, the Association of Large Families and Disney Junior-Movistar+, the latter two made by the company Farrier Art Studio. In this company, the employees have worked against the clock this week to get the floats ready.
Now we are already adjusting the details in order to make everything fit. In the Disney Junior float we had to use 400 meters of strip of Led lights to make Spidey’s spider webs. We have to do lighting, sound, video and audio tests because it also has a screen three and a half meters wide, explains Álvaro Rossignoli, CEO of Estudio Arte Herrador.
The same thing happens in Publidynamics, another of the leading companies in the sector, where the operators have given the last touches to the caravans these days. In his warehouse in the Ventorro del Cano industrial estate, in Alcorcn, floats have been made for the parades of Madrid, Pinto, Coslada, Legans, San Martin de la Vega and Majadahondaa town where balls and stuffed animals will be distributed for the little ones.
We have been working day and night for two weeks to leave the perfect floats. We are increasingly being asked for more services such as streamer and confetti machines. It is noticeable that this year there is a lot of joy and that the town halls they want to recover the illusion of the children in the streets, concludes Scar Corrochano, director of Publidinmica.
According to the criteria of