New Year’s Eve in Rio does not get sponsorship, and the bid can be canceled

After three months of successive delays, the three companies that won the public notice to organize the New Year’s Eve in Rio de Janeiro still haven’t managed to get the commitment of sponsors willing to support one of the biggest parties in the world.

A CNN he found that, in practice, the lack of a guarantor could even lead to a cancellation of the bid by Riotur, the Tourism Company of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro that coordinates the party. If the scenario was already difficult with the retreat of entrepreneurs, the arrival of the Ômicron variant further hinders the plans.

Unlike previous years, in 2021 the City of Rio de Janeiro allowed companies that won the bid to promote New Year’s Eve to deliver the sponsor’s letter after the announcement of the winners. The initial deadline was September 6th. It was postponed to the 27th of September, then to the 29th of October.

For the company that won the bid for the three stages of Copacabana, the city’s tourism agency granted an additional 20 days. The company is responsible for part of the party, which is expected to gather 2 million people.

The other two companies that form the consortium to set up the other ten stages around the city had the extension until November 30th. The expectation is that the stages can gather 1 million people, according to the city hall. But the sponsorship intent letters were not delivered.

An interlocutor from one of the companies privately stated that there was already the ‘worded’ commitment of companies interested in sponsoring the party, but with the advance of the pandemic, the persistence of new cases and deaths and the emergence of a new variant, ‘micron’, nobody wanted to officially commit.

A CNN found that Riotur now works with three scenarios. The first one is to forgive the delays and make a legal patch to keep the notice valid even after the deadline has expired. In the assessment of the agency’s interlocutors, this would be the best way to keep the initial plans if New Year’s Eve is held.

The second plan is to cancel the bidding and reopen the competition in case the sponsors do not show up and the city is forced to relaunch the proposal to the market or pay for the party on its own. The problem for this plan is the very tight deadline for such a big event.

The third scenario would be to cancel everything alleging the advance of the pandemic and the arrival of the Ômicron variant. Legally, the solution would be well founded. In other words, the Tourism Company of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro finds itself between the pardon, annulment and cancellation of the notice.

In a note, Riotur limited itself to saying that “it has been planning and organizing both New Year’s Eve and Carnival in the city; as a result of events related to the Covid virus — known to all — information about both events follows the pace of what is possible.”