Postponements for fiestas and popular events haven’t been as popular as town halls might have wished. The Carnival parades were called off in both Pollensa and Sa Pobla, with a promise of - Covid conditions permitting - their being held some time in the spring. Critics asked - how can you have Carnival when not only will it be well beyond when Carnival should be, but Lent will have been and gone as well? In fact, so will Easter by the time that Sa Pobla gets round to having its parade (May 7). Pollensa says that its rearranged Carnival parade will be at the end of May (date not confirmed yet).
These postponements, as they turned out, did seem somewhat unnecessary. Other town halls, such as Alcudia, clearly had no problem with having a parade. Covid was as Covid had become by the time that Carnival arrived, but Covid was far more of a worry back in January, when town halls took the decision to call off the Sant Antoni fiestas. The Balearic government had, in truth, taken the decision for them. No mass gatherings were permitted, for example. Without masses, there was no point to key events.
Sa Pobla, the capital of Sant Antoni, has now come up with the idea for a sort of Sant Antoni. The date - April the thirtieth, three and a half months after Sant Antoni should have happened. This will be a children’s and solidarity Sant Antoni, says the town hall. Among other things, there will be the bigheads - the adults’ and children’s versions.
What there won’t be will be demons or any religious act reminiscent of Sant Antoni. The Obreria de Sant Antoni, keepers of the fiesta traditions, told the town hall that it had no intention of taking part in something to be celebrated approximately one hundred days late.
Given the Obreria’s outright rejection, the town hall and associations who had gathered to discuss the postponed fiestas on Wednesday came to the conclusion that there would be a need to disassociate the April 30 do from Sant Antoni as such. So, it will be a Sant Antoni-lite but not by name.