One of our hosts, Ronnie was riding in the parade for the first time this year and he gave us a little insight into how these things get off the ground. I never really thought about it, but I guess I assumed the floats were paid for by big corporations or had large financial backing coming from somewhere because they're so damned expensive – some of them cost up to $1million USD to create and there are hundreds of them going down the street over the course of the Mardi Gras festival (which led me to asking, 'What? Don't you have people living in poverty in New Orleans?, but that is another discussion).
So with that much money flying about to pay for this visual extravaganza, I assumed that it was corporate funded somehow… but then I found out most of the floats and parades are sponsored by large not for profit clubs, some of them very exclusive in their membership, and people have to pay to ride on the floats. Some of these costs can be thousands of dollars per person – as there are costs involved in decorating and outfitting the floats, hiring portaloos for the floats, and no doubt costs to the guy on the tractor pulling the float and other untold hidden expenses. Which kinda explains now why none of these floats are covered in corporate branding – not even the sign with the name of the float and it's number in the parade has a logo on it, there are no logos anywhere.
But, on top of this 'get on the float' fee, the people riding the floats often PAY FOR THEIR OWN BEADS to toss to the crowd. The individuals riding the float, after securing their space to be a part of the parade, then turn around and spend over $1,000 each on beads, toys and trinkets to throw to the parade goers… which makes the piles of trash and wasted beads and loot, so much more heartbreaking.
Now various floats in the different parades operate different ways, no doubt down to the vagaries of the clubs organising them. Some may charge big bucks up front so that the rider will have their space, a matching costume and parade specific beads to throw (many of the beads have designs and names of them 'Thoth, Bacchus, Orpheus, Perseus, Rex, Zulu, etc.), and others may charge a more moderate amount to get on the float and then the rider has to cover everything themselves. Some floats are a family affair, and the tradition has been passed down over generations and each year, the family and friends of an individual, will gang together to cover the cost of keeping the float in the parade. Either way, it seems that it is a helluva lot of expense for the citizens of New Orleans to be shelling out of their own pockets, for what is effectively a major tourist attraction and money spinner for the entire city – the hotels and restaurants, taxi industry, bars, nightclubs and everyone makes a motza when Mardi Gras is in town, and they don't need to do much other than be open when the people start rolling in to empty their wallets. Hopefully the City (TM) is putting more back into these parades then it seems.
The other thing that happens all behinds the scenes that both fascinated and horrified me was the rubbish, while I have alluded to already, but which was so much worse than I could possibly describe. I heard on the local tv news channel they they used to judge the success of the Mardi Gras parades based on how much rubbish was generated.. but they stopped doing this a few years ago when it came about that they hit 9,000,000 pounds of garbage! Someone apparently thought it was not a good plan to determine success based on waste, and now they don't publicise how much garbage is collected anymore.
The clean up crews do an amazing job. They come through night after night, clearing the streets of beads, cups, trinkets, food wrappers, bags and even busted lawn chairs. We even saw teams going by in cherry pickers pulling down all the beads that had gotten stuck in trees when being tossed from floats. Walking around Bourbon Street the morning after Fat Tuesday, it was hard to believe the streets were in such a mess the night before. They sure have this down to a fine art.
And to think, they'll do it all over again, albeit on a smaller scale for the Easter Parades…
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