People leaned out of wrought iron balconies along St. Charles Avenue on Tuesday, hollering the familiar call as a major Mardi Gras parade rolled through New Orleans. The celebration marked Mardi Gras — also known as Fat Tuesday — as the end of the weekslong Carnival season and the day before Ash Wednesday, when many Christians begin Lent.
Revelers in Louisiana’s most populous city gathered early along parade route corridors, setting out chairs, coolers, grills and ladders for a higher view of the floats and marching bands. As the procession moved by, people danced and cheered to the music and mingled with friends while holding drinks, with many choosing alcohol-infused “adult concoctions” for the day.
Each parade in the city’s Carnival calendar carries its own set of “throws” — the trinkets that spectators hope to catch. The roundup includes items such as plastic beads, candy, doubloons, stuffed animals, cups and toys, and it also featured Zulu’s hand-decorated coconuts, a signature item associated with the parade named after the largest ethnic group in South Africa.
One reveler dressed like a crawfish caught a coconut and waved it as the gold glitter on the husk caught the sunlight. Sue Mennino, meanwhile, wore a white Egyptian-inspired costume, complete with a gold headpiece and a translucent cape, and she embellished her face with glitter and electric blue eyeshadow.
Mennino summed up the mood on the day, telling the Associated Press, “The world will be here tomorrow, but today is a day off and a time to party.” Archer, dressed as Madame Leota — whose head appears inside a crystal ball in Disney’s Haunted Mansion — said, “The people are the best part,” describing the atmosphere as happiness. “Everybody is just so happy,” she explained.
The party extended beyond the parade route. Throughout the French Quarter, people celebrated on balconies and on the front porches of shotgun-style houses, including an impromptu procession led by a man playing a washboard instrument and dressed as a blue alligator; his papier-mâché tail dragged along the street and, unintentionally, swept up stray beads.
In other parts of the city, Jackson Square drew costumed crowds, ranging from a man painted head to toe as a zebra to groups cosplaying as Hungry Hungry Hippos from the tabletop game, and to a diver wearing an antique brass and copper helmet. The day’s celebrations also ranged across Louisiana with other events tied to Mardi Gras traditions, including the Cajun French Courir de Mardi Gras, described as a rural Central Louisiana event featuring costumed participants performing, begging for ingredients and chasing live chickens that are later cooked in communal gumbo.
Parades and festival customs also took place in other Gulf Coast cities such as Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, and internationally in places including Brazil and Europe. One of the more unusual traditions described by the Associated Press involves an international Pancake Day competition with racers in Liberal, Kansas, and Olney, England, where contestants must carry a pancake in a frying pan and flip the pancake at the start and end of a 415-yard (380-meter) race.