As Mardi Gras approaches in New Orleans, maskers and parades take centre stage

Carnival season 2025 is approaching its climax in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast, with big parades rolling down the main routes as some revelers get fancied up for formal balls while others dress in costume to poke fun and make merry.

A closer look at Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans

Three parades will roll Thursday night in New Orleans with scores of masked riders on colourful floats. More processions will continue every day through Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. Costumed revellers will jam the French Quarter as more parades roll in New Orleans' suburbs, other Louisiana cities, and all along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts.

What is Mardi Gras?
Carnival in New Orleans and around the world is rooted in Christian and Roman Catholic traditions. The season begins on Jan. 6, the 12th day after Christmas, and continues until Mardi Gras, which is the final day of feasting, drinking and revelry before Ash Wednesday and the fasting associated with Lent, the Christian season of preparation for Easter.

Carnival celebrations have become thoroughly secularized in New Orleans, where the largest and best-known celebrations in the U.S. include street parties, fancy balls and boisterous parades. Some of the parades are high-tech extravaganzas that feature massive floats laden with flashing lights and giant moving figures.

“It’s all about family. It’s like a six-mile-long block party and nothing could be more fun. It’s for everyone,” said Virginia Saussy of the Krewe of Muses, which is set to parade Thursday night. "You got to come experience it to understand.”

How else do people celebrate Mardi Gras?
On Mardi Gras in southwest Louisiana, some people will take part in the Cajun French tradition of the Courir de Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday Run. These rural processions, with links to rituals from medieval France, feature masked and costumed riders, with stops where participants perform and beg for goods. Inebriated maskers often chase live chickens to include in a communal gumbo at the end of the day.

In New Orleans, some African Americans mask in elaborate beaded and feathered Mardi Gras Indian suits, roving the city to sing, dance, drum and perform. The tradition, a central part of the Black Carnival experience in New Orleans since at least the late 1800s, is believed to have started in part as a way to pay homage to area Native Americans for their assistance to Black people and runaway slaves. It also developed at a time when segregation barred Black residents from taking part in whites-only parades.

Why is Mardi Gras so late this year?
Because it’s linked to Easter, the date of Mardi Gras can fall anywhere between Feb. 3 and March 9. That’s because Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

This year’s date of March 4 is one of the latest possible. That means warmer temperatures are likely along the Gulf Coast rather than the often cool and clammy weather of February. However, there’s a chance of rain on Tuesday in the region.

What are ‘throws?’
“Throw” is a noun used to describe the trinkets that float riders in parades and walking members of carnival clubs — known as krewes — give to spectators. Shimmery strings of plastic beads are ubiquitous, although some krewes are exploring alternatives out of environmental concerns. Participants in the parade of New Orleans' Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club hand out highly sought-after painted coconuts.

At Thursday's Muses parade, glittery hand-decorated shoes are the prize souvenir.

“The first year we created a bead that was a stiletto shoe and it was just to be a commemorative bead — but it took off,” said Saussy, who is the chairwoman of Muses' theme and floats. "People love shoes, who knew?”