Mardi Gras in New Orleans

The parade days

Carnival in New Orleans starts on Twelfth Night, 6 January, and ends on Mardi Gras Day, Tuesday 9 February 2027. The date moves because it is set from Easter: Mardi Gras is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, and Easter in 2027 is 28 March. Parades roll on most weekends of January, and from 3 February there is a parade every night.

The schedule below is the tentative 2027 list published at mardigrasneworleans.com, which says times can change. The krewes confirm routes and times close to the date.

Thursday has three parades in a row: Knights of Chaos at 4:30pm, Knights of Babylon at 5:30pm and Muses at 6pm. Muses closes the night at 6pm.

Endymion is the only big parade that does not use the Uptown route. It starts in Mid-City at 4pm and then turns toward Canal Street and the Central Business District. Iris at 11am and Tucks at noon roll Uptown on the same day, so a morning on St. Charles Avenue and an evening in Mid-City are two separate plans.

Sunday has Okeanos at 11am, Thoth at noon and Bacchus at 5:15pm, all Uptown. Thoth is the one built around daytime: its route goes past institutions that care for people who cannot otherwise get to a parade. Bacchus closes the day.

Lundi Gras, the Monday before Fat Tuesday, has Proteus at 5:15pm and Orpheus at 6pm.

Zulu rolls Uptown at 8am and Rex follows at 10:30am, with the walking and truck krewes behind them. The Mardi Gras Indians are on the schedule for Mardi Gras Day with the time still to be announced. Weather has moved the start earlier before: in 2025 Zulu rolled at 6:30am with shortened routes.

Where to stand

The French Quarter has no big parades. The city banned them from the historic district in 1973 because the narrow streets could not hold the floats and the crowds, and the closest the main routes come is Canal Street. Smaller krewes still use the Quarter: Krewe du Vieux rolls through it at 6:30pm on Saturday 23 January, Krewe of Cork on the 29th and Krewe of Barkus on the 31st.

Uptown, the parades travel along St. Charles Avenue, and the long grassy median, the neutral ground, is where people set up chairs and ladders. The routes reach Canal Street and the Central Business District after that. Mid-City is the place for Endymion, whose route is not shared with the other parades.

Rules on the route

The city publishes rules for people along the route, and it enforces them. Items such as chairs, ladders and coolers cannot be put on the public right-of-way, including the neutral ground, earlier than four hours before a parade starts, and anything left out earlier may be removed by the city. Ladders must be free-standing, no taller than 6 feet and set back at least 6 feet from the curb, and they cannot be fastened together. Open flames and generators are banned along the route, and so are enclosed tents and canopies. Pets other than service animals are not allowed. You cannot rope off or fence a part of the neutral ground. There is no parking on either side of St. Charles or Napoleon avenues during parades.

On 23 July 2026 the City Council approved a new ordinance. Ladders may not stand within 6 feet of the curb or be left unattended, and repeat violations can draw fines of up to $2,000. Open flames, portable toilets and ladders strapped together become misdemeanors instead of simple fines. The no-parking zone around parade formation areas grows from two hours to four hours, bands may not stop to play unless the float ahead of them stops first, and several routes and start times changed: Sparta and Krewe d'Etat now start at Magazine Street and Napoleon Avenue, and the start times for Druids and Tucks changed. The article reporting the vote gives no effective date.

Where to sleep

Choose by the parade you plan to see.

The French Quarter is walkable from Canal Street, where the Uptown routes arrive, and it has the small January krewes. The Central Business District and the Warehouse District sit at the end of the routes, a short walk from Canal Street. Uptown and the Garden District are on the parade route along St. Charles Avenue, so a room there puts the parade at the door. Mid-City is the choice for Endymion.

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Mardi Gras Day

Plan Mardi Gras Day around the 8am start of Zulu. The Mardi Gras Indians, the Black masking tradition of New Orleans, are on the schedule for the day, with the time still to be announced. The Backstreet Cultural Museum in Tremé, at 1116 Henriette Delille Street, explains the tradition and keeps retired suits in its collection.

Super Sunday, the big Uptown gathering of the Indians, falls near St. Joseph's Day on the third Sunday of March, so it is a separate trip rather than part of Carnival.

What to skip

The usual mistake is to expect the big parades in the French Quarter and to book a room there for them. They are not in the Quarter; the closest they come is Canal Street. Pick the route first and the room second.

The second is to arrive on Mardi Gras Day with no plan for the early start. Zulu is at 8am on the tentative schedule, and weather moved it to 6:30am in 2025. If Mardi Gras Day matters to your trip, sleep near St. Charles Avenue the night before.