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| Carnival Queen in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 2013, Soraya Rodríguez Castro |
In 2013, the court was made up of:
- 1st Maid of Honour: Chloe García Poole, with a costume entitled "Memorias de África" (Memories of Africa), representing Barbacoa Tacoronte Fiesta Canaria Carnaval and designed by Expedita Hernández.
- 2nd Maid of Honour: Regina Ramos Darias, with "Mármara" (Marmara), representing newspaper La Opinión de Tenerife and McDonalds and designed by Daniel Pagés.
- 3rd Maid of Honour: Leticia Ramos González, with a costume entitled "Suspiros de Invierno" (Sighs of Winter), representing Manualidades Grial and El Rincón Extremeño and designed by Dámaso Ramos.
- 4th Maid of Honour: Irene Martínez Trigueros, with a costume entitled "Que lo disfrutes…que lo aproveches" (Enjoy it ... take advantage of it), representing Zona Comercial Tranvía and designed by Santi Castro.
Gala de Elección de la Reina del Carnaval 2013
The theme of Carnival in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 2013 was "Bollywood: India" and it was the first time that the theme of the carnival is chosen by online voting.
The stage was inspired by those used in the Eurovision Song Contest, with a large LED screen (much wasted, since it was nothing more than a screensaver) the largest in Europe. Among the jury who chose the Carnival Queen, were journalist, Miguel Ángel Daswani; the Bollywood actor and choreographer Sunny Singh (born in Bombay) and the president of the jury was the Indian consul in the Canary Islands, Gope Boagwandas Mahtani.
The 2013 carnival was marked by a disastrous accident that occurred during the queen's election gala, in which one of the costumes, which had a device that released a form of firework, set fire to the adjacent one and caused serious burns to candidate, Saida Prieto, the next candidate and six other people, including her assistants, the designer of Saida's costume, and the designer of the costume that caused the fire. The organizers did not want to cause alarm among the attendees for fear of a panic reaction that would have caused deaths, as in Madrid Arena, despite the fact that the fire was about to reach the stage, which only did not happen due to the rapid intervention of the firefighters.
Saida's burns were so serious that the political authorities made the snap decision to suspend the Friday night's opening parade as a symbol of respect, provoking many reactions, both from carnival goers who wanted to enjoy themselves and from tourists who had paid a lot of money to see the party, as well as from the fair operators, people that rented kiosks and people in general who had the party as their main source of income. Some suggested something perhaps more logical, dedicate the parade to the affected girl, instead of simply suspending the act. However, these voices were not heard, probably due to the chaos and the attempt by those in charge to finding a solution as rapidly as possible.