The Competition
The craved Sopera
All groups participating in El Descenso (The Descent) have the same goal: to create the best float to win the Sopera (for adults) or the Soperina (little Sopera, for the kids category), and have fun in the process
Old rules
Current contest rules, made during the last 10 years, are written from a more objective, strict and clear point. Before this, the contest was ruled by non-written rules that were respected by all participant, but made the judges task more difficult, as it was complicated to rate with objectivity the different categories
Current Rules
Current rules are approved by large consensus among all the associations and groups participating in the event
The rules are made to provide enough objectivity to rate parameters that otherwise will be difficult to evaluate objectively.
They must be complied and failing on doing so will cause disqualification
Awards
The following awards are given:
- Adults Award - Sopera
- Kids Awards - Soperina
- Trophy for top fifteen
- Asturiania Award (most asturian feeling)
- Folixa Award (most party and fun)
- Costume Award
Features that are scored
Asturiania (Asturian feeling)
This award does not score towards the Sopera prize.
Anything that identifies Asturias is valued for this award, from present matters to old ones, but not necessarily only things related to tradition or culture
Spree
This award is for the float that preserves the essence of The Descenso the most, like having life music instead of "canned", and dancing and performing choreographies, and asking for water from the balconies, and making the parade fun and enjoyable for everybody
Points will be awarded for following the parade rules, keeping close to the other floats, try not to slow down the parade, good image and behavior for the group, giving good image to the event in general, following directions from authorities and organization, to have the Asturian flag visible in the float, as well as the bucket, and having the Godmother or Godfather
Float
The jury will value the following items about the floats:
- For the Sopera award, 40% of the total points will be awarded towards float building, like proportions, colorful, finished, quality, etc. For the Soperina, this will be 80% of total points for "float" category
- Float conditions at La Chalana meadow: judges will evaluate how the float has endured Nalon river's fierceness, looking at the floats when they finish the river trip and assigning points based on the damage suffered, but this score won't be higher than the one in "float" category; i.e: a float that got 8 over 10 in float category, and it is in perfect conditions after going down the river, can get a max of 8 over 10 points on this.
Costume
Costume will be scored towards "float", making for 20% of it, but will also have its own trophy. Costume elaboration, difficulty, colorfulness, flashiness, matching the float theme will point on this section
Civics
Participants behavior is monitored and rated during the whole event. Judges could rest up to 1 point in case of misbehavior and rules violation. If the float members keep accumulating penalties, they may be disqualified from the contest.
Enrollment
The groups are in charge of enroll themselves for the contest. The Organization, in a join effort with Laviana's City Council and its Youth Informative Office prepare a simple process including an in-person enrolment and a form subscription throught the web site.
Each float captain will need to go to the Youth Office to pre-enroll their float. They will be given a username and password to acces the web site and complete the enrolment. The username and password are unique per team and will be useful to ask questions and to make changes as needed
All data about the float needs to be filled correctly in the online system, things as float name, dimensions, group name, etc.
Jury
The Jury is form of 5 people plus a minutes secretary, whom are requested to participate with enough time in advance by the Organization. Due to the subjectivity of the points to evaluate, it is very important the judges profiles to follow some standards, as:
- An official from Laviana's City Council (minutes Secretary)
- A Tourism Regional Society of Asturias member
- Two members from the International Sella Descent management team (International Tourist Interest Festival)
- Two members from the Valdesoto Floats management team (Regional Tourist Interest Festival)
With such a group of specialist in the subject, we cover all the important points to evaluate such as parade, float, costumes, river descent, etc.)
