You have to be there in body and soul, mingle with the crowd, sweat, maybe even march with a samba school. Let Samba create the atmosphere. The two-day event lasts a total of over 20 hours, a true samba marathon. Each school or group tries to make a better show than the one that marched before. At the end of the parade two schools will go down from the special group to the first group andvice-versa.
Competition is fierce.
Schools are not teaching institutions, in case you are getting confused. They get together on a regular basis for samba meetings and rehearsals. Each year they come out with a new theme for the big Samba Parade at the Sambodrome on Carnival Sunday and Monday. Each Samba School takes anything from 4,000 to 5,000 members and from 6 to 8 floats. They have a period from 60 to 80 minutes to march on the Sambadrome.