New Orleans Mardi Gras isn’t just on Fat Tuesday, the final Carnival feast on the day before Ash Wednesday. In New Orleans, the party starts on Kings Day, Twelfth Night, January 6 and runs pretty much every weekend.
Carnival preparations start six months before. If you really want to enjoy Carnival, join a Mas (masquerade marching group), which in the Hispanic world we call a comparsa. The parties get more intense in the last month, and the last week, until the last weekend frenzy which climaxes on Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras.
New Orleans Mardi Gras 2024
New Orleans Mardi Gras 2024 is January 6 to February 13, 2024.
When we were brought to the Americas from Mother Africa in the Colonial Period, we were grouped into “nations” based on where we were shipped from. Later we formed nations based on the neighborhoods where we live. Even today, mas groups, which in New Orleans are “krewes,” march in their neighborhoods. City and national governments sponsor big Carnival celebrations, but the heart of it all is still in the neighborhood, which in Spanish we call the barrio.
So New Orleans Mardi Gras 2024 begins on January 6 with these marches.
- Krewe of Joan of Arc and Sociéte des Champs Elysée march through the French Quarter.
- Phunny Phorty Phellows and Funky Uptown Krewe march through Uptown New Orleans.
- Fools of Misrule march through Covington.
- Mande Kings Day marches through Mandeville.
Things pick up again on January 20 and January 26-28. It gets wild with marches every day from February 2 to Fat Tuesday.