Nerja Council have decided to form a committee to study possible locations for a new Carnival Museum. The committee will be composed of members from the Culture, Folklore and Tourism Development department at the council, plus representatives from the Carnival organisers. The committee will also study the creation of carnival workshops for this very popular event. For several weeks before and after the Nerja Carnival there was a temporary exhibition of costumes and other props from previous carnivals in the Sala Mercado, that attracted over 2,000 visitors whilst it was open. Now the plan is to create a permanent museum.
Folklore Councillor, Sandra Jimena, said that the Nerja Carnival “is part of the cultural heritage of our people and has reached a level of artistry that deserves to be exposed properly as cultural complement to our tourism industry.” She added that the museum “would be a stimulus and would help maintain a popular tradition that is already part of our collective memory.”
Last month we reported that the Nerja Museum which opened in December 2011 at a cost of over €5 million, only received 19,500 visitors in its first year of operation. This is less than half the number of visitors the museum needs according to the official viability figures, of 40,000 visitors per annum.
When the museum was first being planned, during the boom years before the global financial crisis of 2008, 100,000 visitors a year were envisaged, compared to the 400,000 visitors a year that the Nerja Caves receives.