Mardi Gras World-Riverfront

Great place to visit for an hour or two. Being my first time in NOLA, it was quite an immersive experience into Mardi Gras culture. The floats are beautiful, huge, and the artists working here are highly skilled. It was great seeing them work at different stages from shaping/cutting, paper mache, to painting. I love that they can repurpose prior year floats into new ones.

Be warned, there is no AC where the floats are housed, but you can easily head back to the gift shop for a cool down.

Is this place worth $22 per person for adults? Absolutely not. But sure, it was worth $14.55, what I paid on Groupon.

I liked getting the king cake sample, but I kind of felt rushed eating it, since it was served after the video presentation. The tour was fun and informative and I enjoyed seeing the parade floats and props up close.

Gift shop was large, but really lacking in selection and quality.

Overall, it's worth a stop for your first time in New Orleans.

I went to this facility with a large group from work as a team building exercise (which was to decorate and then present in parade form floats) and then dinner and a reception afterwards.
The start of the visit was boring and awful, as it was nearly 2 hours of "hanging out" in the store and factory area of where they build big, professional floats. Totally no communication of what to do, where to go, etc. So, we walked through it, but it was stifling hot so we went back to the store area where there was AC to hang out. Then, about a couple of hours later, they took us to the area where we decorated our own floats. None of us has any idea that this would be a very messy (painting) endeavor, thus we weren't really dressed appropriately for it. This part of the "event" took about an hour and a half and though it was meant to be a team building exercise, the majority of us really didn't find it to be something we were interested in.

The next part of the event was the reception, which was at a large indoor area that looks like an outdoor courtyard at a mansion. This area was really interesting looking and was the most exciting part of the hours we spent there. The food was decent and there were plenty of bars available too.

Overall, not sure what it costs to have such an event there, but the first two phases weren't worth it... the last was nice. I'm sure we would have been perfectly fine just showing up for the dinner reception portion and omitting the first stuff.

We went here for a networking event. It was amazing!! I have never been to Mardi Gras but I loved seeing all the floats close up! They also did a great job accommodating so many people with food and entertainment!
If you are able to explore, I highly recommend it during your stay in NOLA!

It's a non air conditioned warehouse. I think that's a good piece of info. The gift shop and the video area are both air conditioned. The video last about 15 minutes. You do get a piece of King cake. It's a bigger piece than I thought too. There were a few good nuggets that we learned. I won't spoil it. It's also info that had I never knew, I would've been fine. Get your ticket off Groupon and save a little. I don't think the price is worth it. More like $10 but oh well, we got it in.

I had such a great time at Mardi Gras World. It's definitely a place that I would recommend to tourists and locals alike.

Pro-tip; check Groupon for discounted tickets.

They had tours every half an hour or so and they give you beads which is a fun way to start of our Mardi Gras experience. Then we watched a 15 minute movie explaining how Mardi Gras in New Orleans came to be. Once the movie was over we were served some King's cake which was a delicious surprise.

Our tour guide took us through the entire warehouse and spoke about the process of creating the floats for Mardi Gras. We were able to explore the colorful larger than life sculptures and take pictures of everything. I was very impressed with the craftsmanship and the fact that almost everything is man-made in house.

Lastly, there's a shuttle that afterwards dropped people off at different places in the city. We made sure to take advantage of that!

Overall I had a lovely time!

When

What a cool venue. We came as part of a large conference and Mardi Gras world delivered! The venue was plenty big for all of us. There were so many cool foam sculptures to see. The artistry here is amazing! Well worth a visit!

Amazing. Artist colony vibes and the tours are excellent. Would love to do an actual event here, but that will have to wait.

In the meantime, if you're coming off a cruise or just in town - definitely worth a visit.

The work they do here is incredible!! Seriously mind-blowing artistry at this place. Besides that the tour here at Mardi Gras World is something you must do while visiting the city of New Orleans. We had a great tour guide at the facility who was very clear and informative about everything they do there. It was amazing to learn the history of mardi gras in the city as well as some of the traditions that go along with it. I won't spoil the entire tour by giving the run down but just know that you'll be free to wander and see as much as you want. I was very impressed!

Tourist or Local, Mardi Gras World is worth a visit while in the Big Easy. Practically all floats are stored in this massive warehouse.

This location is where creativity happens. The design team/artists do all the work within these confines and while on tour we got a chance to see them in action.

Our tour was under an hour in length. Durrell was our tour guide for the day. He did an awesome job providing the history of Mardi Gras, how krewes were involved in the festivities and overall provided fun facts behind the scenes when pulling off an elaborate event like this year after year.

You can get a decent deal off of Groupon but where they hit you is the parking.

Parking costs more than the ticket itself! I think we paid under $15 per person for the Groupon entrance fee but the parking was at least $20 and you had to download the city's parking app (Park Mobile) to park in the facility lot.

The onsite gravel lot has plenty of signage prompting you to download the Park Mobile QR code. Make sure to park on the visitor side. Don't forget to do this and pay the fee otherwise run the risk of a ticket or, in the worst-case scenario, get towed.