It's the Mardi Gras parade experience, but with a twist: instead of floats driving by you, you drive by the floats at New Orleans City Park's "Floats in the Oaks."
"Floats in the Oaks" brings some of Mardi Gras' signature pieces of movable artwork to City Park. While it almost seems like an obvious way to celebrate this year's parade-less carnival, Mardi Gras World's Barry Kern says they had to hurdle some logistics just to get the floats there.
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"Most of the organizations, because they weren't parading this year, they didn't want to have the expense of their insurance, their liability insurance for moving the floats, the floats were going to stay in the den," said Kern. Officials had to make sure they were covered for any liability should something go wrong while the floats were being transferred to the park.
And the route floats would take from their dens to the park had to be considered, too. While floats have traveled the same basic streets for years, this would be something new for the drivers, so Kern says they had to make sure the path was clear.
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"It's not just as simple as, you know, a lot of people think you just, they just hook up the float and make it happen," explained Kern. "We had to send a guy, our logistics guy...to go figure out where the floats go. We gotta cut some trees, lines have to be moved."
But they got it done, and now floats from Rex, Zulu, Bacchus, Argus and many other parades are set up at City Park.
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