The Festival That Can’t — No — Won’t Die

Until the City of Miami chooses to host an unannounced street festival on the Palmetto Expressway between 4 and 6 p.m. on a random Tuesday, the most exciting road closure of the year is still Carnaval Miami’s Calle Ocho party, self-erecting this Sunday between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. across 23 blocks of SW Eight Street. There you’ll find more designated zones than in Baghdad, two prominent examples being Kids Zone, populated by clowns, finger foods, and sports team mascots; and Parranda Zone, dominated by street dancers and traveling packs of musicians.

In the unofficially named “Wow, Have I Really Been Reduced to Headlining Street Festivals?” Zone is Shaggy, Kevin Lyttle, Baby Bash, and Charlie Hustle, while the “Wow, I’m Finally Headlining Street Festivals!” Zone contains a stage on which reality-TV celebrity Brooke Hogan will be doing something that could perhaps, in a precivilized world where music hasn’t been invented yet, be called singing. Otherwise there’s a tent, stage, or booth for practically anything your street-fest-craving heart could ever desire: the best salsa and merengue musicians money can buy and a diverse array of ethnic foods, corporate products, games, rides, and performers, all under that beautiful Florida winter sun.
Sun., March 15, 2009