NEW ORLEANS (AP) – You just can’t keep a good city down, especially when Mardi Gras is coming.
Around New Orleans, thousands of homes are being decorated as floats because the coronavirus outbreak canceled elaborate crowded parades during the carnival season leading up to Fat Tuesday.
Some smaller groups have announced plans not to parade before the city yes. Pandemic substitutions include scavenger hunts that would normally be thrown on floats or distributed on a tram, as well as outdoor art and drive-thru or virtual parades. The prominent Bacchus Krewe has an application where people can pick up and exchange virtual trinkets during the carnival and watch a virtual parade on February 14, when the parade was scheduled.
But the house float movement started almost as soon as a New Orleans spokesman announced November 17 that the parades were canceled.
That morning, Megan Joy Boudreaux posted what she later called a fool Twitter joke: “We are doing this. Turn your house into a float and dump all your attic bills on neighbors who are passing by. “
But the more she thought about it, the more she liked it. She started a Facebook group, the Krewe of House Floats, waiting for some friends and neighbors to join. The numbers have increased. Thirty-nine subgroups evolved to discuss neighborhood plans.
At the official start of the carnival season on January 6, the group had more than 9,000 members, including “expatriates” from outside the state. About 3,000, including some in distant places like England and Australia, will have their homes on an official online map, said Charlotte “Charlie” Jallans-Daly, one of the two cartographers.
The houses must be decorated at least two weeks before Fat Tuesday, which is February 16th this year. With widespread speeches and two weeks to keep your mouth open, the hope is that people will spread widely across time and space.
“I didn’t think I was starting a Mardi Gras krewe. I’m here, ”said Boudreaux. “I got a second full-time job.”
Discussions in Facebook groups include how-to’s, announcements for props and neighborhood themes. Artists taught outdoor classes broadcast live.
Katie Bankens posted that the subject of her block was the paradise of Shark Week’s stay. When a resident became concerned that he was not “astute” enough, administrator Carley Sercovich replied that if they could play music and throw trinkets at their neighbors, “you are perfect for this Krewe!”
Boudreaux also suggested that people could hire or buy from unemployed carnival artists and suppliers affected by the cancellation of the parade. A spreadsheet of artists and suppliers followed. One of them, the artist Dominic “Dom” Graves, reserved more than 20 lessons for five people in professional techniques of papier-mache, for US $ 100 per person.
Devin DeWulf, who had already started two pandemic charities as head of the Krewe of Red Beans hiking club, kicked the idea of floating the house a few notches at the suggestion of Caroline Thomas, a professional float designer. Your “Hire a Mardi Gras Artist” crowdfunded lotteries raised enough money to put teams to work on the decoration of 11 houses, in addition to jobs ordered from two more houses and seven companies.
“We put about 40 people to work, which is good,” said DeWulf. As Mardi Gras approached, he said the 12th lottery would be the last.
A commissioned house is rented by two nuns.
Sisters Mary Ann Specha and Julie Walsh, who run a shelter for homeless women with children, had to obtain permission for their own collective funding from the mother house of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dubuque, Iowa. “They loved it,” said Specha.
Crowdfunded decorations can be auctioned off after Mardi Gras to raise more money, said DeWulf.
Several mansions along a short stretch of St. Charles Avenue had exhibits designed with plaques indicating their creation by one of the largest float-making studios in the city.
Tom Fox, whose wife, Madeline, painted a scene from Spongebob Squarepants and made jellyfish out of one-dollar store bowls, said he thinks a new tradition may have started.
“Even when Mardi Gras comes back, I think people will continue to do that,” he said.