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The warehouse
Guests tour a working warehouse where Mardi Gras floats are made
Mardi Gras World is a tourist attraction in New Orleans, where guests tour the 300,000 square foot working warehouse where floats are made for Mardi Gras parades. It stands along the Mississippi River, next to the New Orleans Morial Convention Center. Its events venue, the River City Complex, also hosts festivals, weddings, private parties and corporate events.
1835
In 1835 the streets filled with masks, disguises and thrown flour
In 1835 the author James R. Creecy described the day: men and boys, women and girls, bond and free, appeared in strange masks and disguises. Some wore the heads of beasts and birds, and all marched on foot, on horseback and in wagons, shouting, singing, laughing and drumming, and throwing flour broadcast.
“Shrove Tuesday is a day to be remembered by strangers in New Orleans, for that is the day for fun, frolic, and comic masquerading.”
James R. Creecy, describing 1835 in Scenes in the South
1856
In 1856, 21 businessmen founded the first krewe, the Mistick Krewe of Comus
In 1856, 21 businessmen gathered at a club room in the French Quarter to organize a secret society to observe Mardi Gras with a formal parade. They founded New Orleans' first and oldest krewe, the Mistick Krewe of Comus. The parades are still organized by social clubs known as krewes, and float riders traditionally toss throws such as beads, doubloons and cups into the crowds.
Blaine Kern
In 1946 Blaine Kern founded a float studio, and a mural won him his first krewe
In 1946, Blaine Kern, Sr. founded Blaine Kern Artists. He came from a family of float builders, but began creating floats after 1947, when a surgeon and krewe captain who had seen a mural by Kern hired him to create floats for the Krewe of Alla. He traveled to Europe to learn float building techniques, and has built floats for Las Vegas, Mobile, Galveston, Montreal and the Universal Studios Mardi Gras parade.
A look behind
In 1984 it opened to visitors, and in 2008 a second warehouse was added
In 1984 Mardi Gras World was created as a tourist attraction to show visitors a behind-the-scenes look at float building. In 2008 it expanded to a second facility of 300,000 square feet, compared with the original 80,000 square feet in Algiers, in the former River City Casino.
Day 3, midday
It comes after City Park. Then The Presbytère.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Mardi Gras World and the Wikipedia article Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.