Parish Carnival (with Children's Carnival)

A carnival born to bring people together

The Parish Carnival in Montecalvo Irpino, in the province of Avellino, is a young event that has already become one of the most anticipated festivals in upper Irpinia. It was launched in 2023 at the initiative of the San Pompilio Maria Pirrotti parish with a clear goal set by Father Giancarlo Scrocco: to overcome the isolation of the pandemic years and bring the community back together around something joyful and shared. The formula has remained the same ever since: floats built by hand by volunteers, costumed groups, music along the streets, and a square that turns into the village's living room.

The allegorical float parade

The heart of the festival is the open-themed allegorical float parade. There is no set theme: each group chooses its own subject, ranging from political satire and cartoons to fantasy worlds and tributes to Irpinian farming traditions. The floats are assembled in the months leading up to the event in garages, sheds, and courtyards across the village, using papier-mâché, wood, iron, and plenty of volunteer labor: it is a widespread workshop that involves entire families and is, in itself, already part of the celebration.

The day begins in the morning with the gathering of the floats in Piazza Leone XIII, where each vehicle is presented to the public from the stage. In the afternoon, the floats set off through the main streets of the town, following a route that in recent editions has reached nearly four kilometers. Upon returning to the square, the awards ceremony takes place: in the 2025 edition, prizes of 500, 300, and 200 euros were awarded to the top three floats.

The Children's Carnival

The event does not end with the Sunday parade. The Children's Carnival is dedicated to the little ones, traditionally hosted in Piazza Leone XIII on the afternoon of Shrove Tuesday: costume gatherings, games, music, dancing, entertainment, and food stalls designed for families. In 2025, the entertainment was managed by the "Il Paese dei Balocchi" association, with an afternoon entirely built around the children of the village and neighboring towns.

A festival built on volunteering

The Montecalvo Irpino carnival is low on spectacle and high on participation. Everything revolves around the unpaid work of volunteers: those who build the floats, those who prepare local gastronomic specialties in the parish kitchens to be served during the midday break, and those who manage route safety alongside the Carabinieri, municipal police, and civil protection volunteers. The Municipality actively collaborates on logistics and funding, while the Rosa Cristini Foundation supports the parish in the organization.

The result, according to the organizers themselves, has exceeded expectations: in the 2025 edition, thirteen floats paraded, including one from nearby Ariano Irpino, in front of an audience of families and visitors who arrived from the Ufita valley towns despite the cold.

Montecalvo Irpino, a ridge-top village

The village stretches along a winding ridge at an altitude of about 623 meters, overlooking the Miscano Valley, in the far north of the province of Avellino, on the border with the Benevento Sannio area. It preserves medieval traces—the remains of the castle, the 15th-century church of Santa Maria Assunta—and is part of the Association of Bread Cities thanks to the famous Montecalvo bread, produced with local durum wheat. Not far away are the Bolle della Malvizza, mud volcanoes that represent one of the most well-known geological curiosities of the southern Apennines.

The carnival is therefore also an excellent opportunity to discover a corner of inland Campania far from mass tourism circuits, where the festival is not a show packaged for the public but a collective ritual that the village builds for itself—and where anyone who arrives is simply welcome.

Why go

• Allegorical floats entirely self-built by local groups, with a level of craftsmanship surprising for a town of just over three thousand inhabitants.
• A long and scenic parade route through the streets of a ridge-top village.
• A day designed for families, with a specific event dedicated to children.
• Popular Irpinian gastronomy served in the square by parish volunteers.
• An authentically local atmosphere, far removed from large commercial carnivals.