Carnival comes to the Upland Metaverse!

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is a true spectacle, attracting visitors from all over the world. It is a time of joy, music, and celebration, and is an experience that should not be missed.

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is a world-famous annual festival that takes place in the weeks leading up to Ash Wednesday, the start of the Christian season of Lent. This year, Carnival is from February 17-25th. The celebration is known for its elaborate parades, samba dancing, music, and colorful costumes.

During Carnival, the city of Rio de Janeiro becomes a sea of revelers, with people taking to the streets to dance, drink, and enjoy the festivities. The main event is the samba parade, which features ornately decorated floats and thousands of costumed dancers moving to the beat of the drums. We can expect a similar experience in the metaverse!

The samba schools, which are community-based organizations that participate in the parade, compete against each other to see who can put on the most impressive and creative display. The winning school is crowned the champion of Carnival. It will be exciting to see how Upland’s partner – the Mangueira Samba School will fare in the competition, and what kind of exciting experience they will bring virtually to Upland.

In preparation for Carnival, Upland is hosting an ornament contest. Players with 3D design skills can design home ornaments that players will be able to purchase in game and decorate their homes ahead of Carnival. After Upland’s selection, players will vote on their favorite ornaments that will be sold. The best part is that the winners of the competition will receive 70% of the revenue from the sale of their ornaments! Learn more about the competition and technical requirements here. Make sure to get your designs in by January 9, 2023 11:59PM PT.

Full transcript:

it’s 2023 and it’s time to get your
Samba on Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is
coming to Upland and there’s a lot to
look forward to I’m going to explain
what Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is all
about and what we might be able to
expect in the metaverse with upland’s
partnership with the manguera samba
school this video is sponsored by the
Copacabana node you can find more about
them in the link in the description
below and further on in the video
Carnival is taking place in Rio de
Janeiro on February 17th to 25th 2023.
Carnival is all about costumes and
dancing specifically Samba we can see
here in the parade there are huge floats
with big costumes choreographed dancing
and singing and a huge parade and
celebration
what does all this mean for the
metaverse and what can we expect the
pictures I just showed you are from the
sambadrome which is where that parade
was taking place we can see here that
it’s a landmark in Upland and this 700
meter stretch of street is converted
into a permanent parade grounds with
bleachers on each side that can hold up
to 90 000 people and this is what it
looks like in real life only the top
Samba schools have the privilege to
perform in the sambadrome in front of
all of these Spectators each Samba
school is judged by 40 judges in 10
different categories which are
percussion band samba song Harmony flow
in spirit floats and props costumes
Vanguard group the flag bearer theme of
the year and overall impression each
School takes months to prepare for the
carnival thinking of all different
things from costume design choreography
song and so much more in addition to the
main parade in competition in the
sambadrome millions of people traveled
to Rio De Janeiro to celebrate Carnival
and one of the more popular places is
Copacabana beach the first exciting
thing that Upland has announced ahead of
Carnival is the carnival structure
ornament competition similar to these
Christmas ornaments for homes that we
can see here players have an opportunity
to design their own Carnival themed
structure ornaments the best structure
ornaments designed by the players
selected by the Upland team will be
presented to a community vote and the
winning designs will be sold in game
with the designer earning 70 percent of
the revenue made from the sales of those
specific ornaments if you’re a 3D
modeler and you have experience in
blender this is an excellent opportunity
for you to show off your design skills
and even earn some Optics in the process
if you want to read more about the
competition and all of the design
requirements take a look at the link in
the upper right hand corner or in the
description below remember that picture
of Copacabana beach that was located
right along here if you’re looking to
join a great Community or node in Rio de
Janeiro you should definitely check out
the Copacabana node Copacabana is known
for its Beach culture including Sports
and activities such as soccer volleyball
and surfing it also has a great
nightlife and cultural celebrations for
Carnival obviously as well as New Year’s
Eve there are lots of hotels and
restaurants in the neighborhood and in
terms of its architecture it’s known for
its Art Deco style of building which is
a popular style in all of Rio De Janeiro
if you want to be part of the node with
the most popular beats in the world make
sure to check out the Copa Cabana node
there’s a link in the description below
to their Discord server where you can
find out a lot more about them and
engage in that community so here we can
see the digital twin of the menguera
samba school this structure is a exactly
how it appears in the real world now I
spoke about the design competition
that’s going to be happening where
players will be able to decorate their
own homes with Carnival themed
decorations but what else can be done if
I was Upland what kind of things would I
do with a partner like the manguera
samba School ahead of Carnival the first
thing that I would do is create an
in-home experience I would have players
send themselves to the menguera samba
school and you would be able to enter
into the samba School itself and there
could be a cool shopping experience or
even a way through virtual reality to
practice your Samba Moves In order to
realize that kind of event you would
need to have a 3D avatar your block
Explorer which just walks around the map
which will also be your driver in car
races is not going to be the Avatar that
you want if you’re actually going to be
dancing the samba in the metaverse and
this 3D avatar was mentioned in the Q3
update of 2022. it’s unclear when
exactly this is going to to come out but
I think that it would be the perfect
timing if it would be ahead of Carnival
if you had a 3D avatar you would also
need to dress him up in a carnival
costume and this is where these 3D
costumes could be sold in some sort of
store within the menguera samba school
just like in the real world you would
walk into a store and look at some of
the costumes on display inside Upland
once you enter the manguera samba School
you might see a virtual display of lots
of the different types of costumes that
you could purchase for your avatar these
costumes would be in the form of legits
and they would be of different Rarities
and as the items become more rare the
level of detail would increase making
them more visually appealing the rarer
they are you could have different types
of legits collections where you would
have to collect different parts of a
costume you could also create legits of
audio clips of drum beats that your
avatar could dance to and there could be
dance moves as well that are also
different types of legits once you’ve
got your 3D avatar all dressed up in a
costume of these legits with a dance
move and some music he’s gonna need some
friends and a place to dance and for
that you would need some sort of a
parade route players could use the
racetrack function in order to create a
race track which essentially could be a
parade route here we can see two
different race tracks that are within
the Copacabana neighborhood the first
one here is the Rio Promenade which is
an official race track which you can
already race with in Upland and this
Copa Estrada Raceway is one that the
Copacabana node plans to create once any
player is allowed to create race tracks
within the metaverse similar to the
racing feature instead of the car that
you would see here you would see your 3D
avatar walking through the streets of
your neighborhood showing off your
costume and your dance moves along with
all of your other friends in the
metaverse you could coordinate with your
other friends and neighbors to all show
up at the race at the exact same time
put on your dance moves and every
everyone could see you guys parading
through your streets with the decorated
structures along the side of the roads
and just like in the real world where
there are Judges who vote on the very
best Samba School in Upland players
could vote on the very best parade which
would include things like the most
number of structures decorated the
number of players that participated in
the parade the variety and Rarity level
of the players costumes and other
interesting metrics now I’m extremely
confident that Upland is not going to
release all of these features in the
next month and a half in order to create
the experience that I just described to
you however I think that Upland is
absolutely working towards this reality
whether it’s going to be this year or
maybe next year for Carnival I’m fairly
confident that they will be doing
something regarding legits in the
menguera samba school we know that
there’s going to be structure ornaments
we have had parades in Upland in the
past and we also know that Upland is
working on these 3D avatars now what I
described is absolutely a wishful
thinking scenario but I think that this
gives a little bit of a taste of things
that might be possible in the future and
these are the things that are going to
be able to differentiate Upland from
other types of metaverses as Upland is
very strong on its community and we have
already seen Community competitions and
people come together and really show off
some amazing things that communities can
do when they work together in Upland
make sure to subscribe to this channel
as I will be talking more about
everything that has to do with Carnival
and any new features that come into
Upland and I will be covering everything
that has to do with the menguera samba
School partnership let me know in the
comments below what you would like to
see for Carnival in Upland