What was lost, what was gained when COVID cancelled Mardi Gras

Not since World War II has the City of New Orleans gone without a fulsome celebration of Mardi Gras for two consecutive years.

With less than five months remaining before the multi-week affair is scheduled to reach its zenith on Fat Tuesday – March 1, 2022 – civic leaders, businesspeople, and the hundreds of parading organizations responsible for hosting the “greatest free show on earth,” are expecting to bounce back strong after traditional festivities were cancelled in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, an air of uncertainty prevails among those who play a role in giving the party life year after year.

“There are still a lot of question marks,” said Arthur Hardy, a Mardi Gras historian and longtime publisher of the eponymous Mardi Gras Guide, an annual magazine that has tracked Carnival’s every move since 1977. “But I can tell you there is general optimism among the Carnival community, and it is building every day.”

For the uninitiated, uninformed or uninspired, the potential of New Orleans forgoing Mardi Gras again may seem trite. This, however, is not the case for a fifth generation New Orleanian like Hardy whose life’s work studying and reporting on Mardi Gras gives him keen insight on the ramifications of last year’s cancellation.

“The whole soul and spirit of the city was crushed - just like after (Hurricane) Katrina,” Hardy said. “We needed a celebration. We thought we’d be coming out of COVID by then, but we weren’t.”

While Hardy said that he wholeheartedly agrees with Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s decision to cancel the most public-facing elements of Mardi Gras – the extravagant parades, street parties, blow-out events and lavish debutante balls – the thought of missing out on Mardi Gras again in 2022 is hard for him to grasp.

“This is what we do,” Hardy said. “This is who we are.”

One such doer also dedicated to preserving New Orleans culture is Devin De Wulf, founder of the Krewe of Red Beans, a social aid and pleasure club known for a beloved walking parade on Lundi Gras, the Monday preceding Fat Tuesday. Ever since Mardi Gras 2020 sparked the first wave of the pandemic in southeastern Louisiana sickening and, sadly, killing thousands of his fellow citizens, De Wulf and his team have maintained focus on the “social aid” piece of the group’s charter.

“Since COVID started we’ve been doing one thing after another to help the city,” De Wulf said. “Trying to figure any which way to help people using our creativity and parade organizing background to get things done.”

What De Wulf describes is the formula behind several successful non-profits that he played a part in launching over the last 18 months that raised millions of dollars to support the people of New Orleans most adversely affected by the pandemic: healthcare workers, restaurant workers, artists, and the elderly. The first of these non-profits, Feed the Front Line, quickly became “the largest operation in America feeding healthcare workers,” De Wulf said.

When the New Orleans Mayor’s Office announced in November 2020 that Mardi Gras would be different in 2021, De Wulf and the Red Beans crew turned their attention to helping artists who toil behind-the-scenes throughout the year in designing and building the scores of zany floats that take over New Orleans streets – most famously St. Charles Ave. in Uptown – during the season. The result was Hire a Mardi Gras Artist.

“We basically created a float building community out of thin air,” De Wulf said.

The group’s first project – an ode to New Orleans musician Dr. John – debuted a week before Christmas and ushered in the “Krewe of House Floats” phenomenon that swept across New Orleans and beyond.

“That caused people to go bonkers,” De Wulf said. “Other people were getting a lot of work too and that’s how the city got beautifully decorated for Carnival.”

De Wulf said his team raised $330,000 which, in turn, created work for 35 artists, giving them all extra money to help them get through the rest of the year.

“It was very complicated, very elaborate and one of the craziest things I’ve ever done in my life,” De Wulf said.

De Wulf said he hopes the work he has led since the last time millions of people gathered in New Orleans for Mardi Gras will inspire his fellow parading organizations to carefully reconsider the guiding principles of their endeavors.

“To be a part of the parade there is the cultural piece, the pleasure part,” he said. “Ultimately the purpose of a group is to create community and when you create community you have a tool to help the community. You can organize people, motivate people, you can help your community when the community has a need.”

As for his expectations for Mardi Gras 2022, De Wulf said that he is hopeful for Carnival’s triumphant return and that he is “excited to be back on the street in my bean suit.”

“I just think it will be the best,” he said. “For our parade the emotion will be unlike anything other because of the work we have done during COVID.”

The labor of De Wulf and other like-minded organizers last year undoubtedly helped fill a huge void for those who hold onto Mardi Gras tight. Still, the muted celebration was bittersweet for many, including New Orleans native Glenn Duffard.

Duffard, 50, who now lives in the Atlanta area, routinely makes the trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with his wife and daughter, but not in 2021. Duffard said he missed the chance to renew acquaintances and relive childhood experiences with family and friends like watching parades pass by on neighborhood streets.

“We’d wake up on a Saturday morning (during Mardi Gras) and we’d get the Times-Picayune newspaper and see all the parade maps and all the neighborhoods they were in,” Duffard said, noting that neither the Internet nor cellphones existed in the 1970s and 80s.  “All the aunts, uncles, cousins would meet up at my grandmother’s house, have King Cake for breakfast and we’d go and drive to each neighborhood and try to catch part of every parade.”

Since the late 90s, Duffard has also participated in Mardi Gras as one of the masked riders showering waves of parade goers with plastic trinkets, stuffed animals, and plush toys. Duffard said that being a merrymaker who answers the frantic calls of “Throw me something Mista!!” serves as his contribution to ensuring traditions dating back to the 1850s are passed on to future generations, including his daughter.

“Mardi Gras is not what you see on Bourbon Street and it’s not what you see on MTV,” Duffard said. “It’s very family oriented, it’s traditional and it’s accessible to all economic levels of society. Everybody can participate in Carnival in one way shape or form.”

Heading into 2022, Duffard said that he expects there to be a renewed love for Mardi Gras from locals and tourists, alike.

“It’s going to be more appreciated,” Duffard said. “It brings out the best in the city and it brings out the best of the people. When you don’t have it, you truly miss it.”