The Three Kings’ Cavalcade will now take place at 2pm on Sunday due to forecast rain during the evening.
Organisers have said this is the first time in the Cavalcade’s 68-year history that the event has been rescheduled to take place during the daytime.
The Cavalcade was set to take place at 7.30pm January 5, but organisers have decided to push the time forward to 2pm due to forecasts of rain for the evening.
The rescheduling ensures that the community won’t miss out on what is a staple in Gibraltar’s cultural and festive calendar, but this means organisers now have less time to complete preparations.
President of the Three Kings’ Cavalcade Committee, Eric Abudarham, who has volunteered for 42 years, said he wanted to ensure that the Cavalcade still took place on January 5.
“We wanted to do it on the 5th, which is the eve of the epiphany like we’ve always done,” he told the Chronicle.
He said that the committee did not want the community to miss out on having the Cavalcade due to forecasted rain.
“The only time the Cavalcade has been cancelled in its 68 years was the two years during Covid and it wasn’t cancelled by us, we were bound by the health authorities, so we’ve never ever cancelled the Cavalcade,” Mr Abudarham said.
“There’s a vast amount of information on the web, there’s a lot of sites and some of the, say it’s going to rain.”
“We just cannot risk it.”
He pointed to health and safety risks that come with potential rain, as well as the need to ensure that families can enjoy the spectacle in the dry.
“Logistically, Saturday was out of the question,” he said.
“But it seems that we have a window of opportunity to do it at 2pm [on Sunday].”
“We’ve decided to go for it at 2pm, we won’t be able to see the magnificent lighting on the floats but it’s the only way we will be able to give Gibraltar a Cavalcade.”
“We’ve had to move all our logistics forward now, which is a huge task.”
There will be 12 floats as well as the Three Kings, reenactment bands, and various local entities making their way up Main Street to the Ince’s Hall Theatre from 2pm.
The distribution of sweets will begin from 1.15pm.
