Carnival -
The Carnival, or Mardi Gras, celebrations in Madeira take the form of a great parade of floats the Saturday before Shrove Tuesday and remain an essentially folk festival.Groups with thousands of participants flood the main streets of Funchal with music and contagious enjoyment.
This is a week of healthy madness that invades the hotels, bars and clubs, turning them into permanent parties. In an atmosphere of effusive revelry there are surprising examples of creativity and imagination and there is no shortage of daring caricatures in the Cortejo Trapalhão costume parade on Shrove Tuesday.

Semi-Marathon / Porto Santo
This event is organised by the Madeira Athletics Association and takes place on Porto Santo Island, with about 150 athletes

Flower Festival
Every April Madeira’s flower festival fills the main streets of Funchal with floats displaying a multiplicity of different flowers. The day before the parade, thousands of children gather in Praça do Município to lay a flower to build the so-called “Wall of Hope”. There are also other activities in Funchal at the same time, like making carpets of flowers in the streets, performances by folklore groups, flower shows, classical music concerts and variety shows.

Madeira Wine Festival
Recalling the social and economic importance of Madeira wine, the Madeira Wine Festival is held in September during the grape harvest, going back to the population’s old customs since the island was first settled. In Câmara de Lobos the festival begins with the live grape harvest. The picking of the grapes, the pickers’ parade, treading the grapes and the whole ritual of a typical Madeira folk celebration are enjoyed by all. In the centre of Funchal there are light, sound and folk shows connected to traditional wine-making.

Columbus Festival
This event is dedicated to Christopher Columbus and is held in Vila Baleira, Porto Santo in September. The festival involves music, drama, exhibitions and parades recalling the age of the Portuguese discoveries.
Vila Baleira devotes a week to the mariner Christopher Columbus, who lived several years of his life in Porto Santo. Columbus’s first contact with Madeira was in 1478, when Funchal was a centre for the sugar trade. However, his closest ties to the archipelago are the result of his marriage to Filipa Moniz, daughter of the first donee of Porto Santo.
Columbus lived in the archipelago in the last quarter of the 15th century and his first child, Diogo, was born in Porto Santo. This festival harks back to the discoverer’s life in the Madeira Archipelago, his voyages to the Americas and the height of the Ages of Discoveries.
The event includes a number of initiatives alluding to life on the island at the time, with lots of music, street shows and exhibitions. The high point of this week of history is the re-enactment of the arrival of Columbus and his party at the city’s quay.

Regional Band Meeting
In the month of October, at the end of the traditional religious feasts, the village of Ribeira Brava welcomes the annual Regional Meeting of Bands.
This cultural and tourism oriented initiative,was created in an attempt to conserve Madeira’s musical heritage and to publicly pay tribute to the extraordinary collaboration of the Philharmonic bands in favour of the public entertainment initiatives and the indisputable joyfulness that they instil into Madeira’s traditional feasts.
It takes place in the early afternoon on Sunday with a procession of all the regional bands throughout the main streets of this village. Then the bands get together in the stage at the coastal avenue and each band presents its individual repertoire, usually for 10 minutes.
The meeting ends with a combined anthem composed specifically for the occasion. Trophies are then handed out, and a celebration follows.

Christmas & New Year 
Christmas traditions are deeply rooted in the Madeirans’ habits and are combined with the New Year celebrations in a varied programme of cultural, folk and artistic events, beginning in November, when the lights are switched on in the centre of Funchal, lasting all through December and only ending on Twelfth Night.
In mid-November we start preparations for making Funchal a real, life-size Christmas crib.
The streets are decorated with lights of all colours and sizes, with designs allusive to the island and the festive season.
In December, the squares are decked with flowers. Poinsettias, holly and lady’s slipper orchids all help to brighten up the city’s streets. And then there are the Christmas carols ringing out in the streets as if by magic and creating a real festive spirit.
The streets fill with people in this atmosphere of great joy. Some are here to do their Christmas shopping, while others just want to enjoy the atmosphere of the days leading up to the festivities.
There are also cultural events, such as high-quality concerts and exhibitions about the season and the archipelago.
And the bustle doesn’t die down after Christmas, as the last day of the year has to be one to remember.
Funchal’s amphitheatre is transformed into a magnificent crib illuminated by more than 250,000 coloured lights, while the hillsides are dotted with white lights, setting the scene for an unforgettable display.
When the clock strikes twelve on 31 December, the skies are lit up with fire, colour and hope for the New Year, which could not get off to a better start.