We've got a little over a month to go until Carnival season hits, but this weekend, New Orleans gets a new parade that will mix some of the familiar with something new.
The Children's Hospital New Orleans Holiday Parade is set to delight downtown crowds. Parades are nothing new for us, of course, but this parade will be a little different from your typical carnival procession.
"Eight balloons, we're got the helium balloons, that obviously, people think of Macy's," said Barry Kern of Kern Studios. "We've got the big helium balloons that are coming."
This will be the first New Orleans parade to feature giant helium balloons. So what happens when they have to float these things across the streetcar tracks on Canal?
"The balloons are all designed to where they can be pulled down to go underneath the lines as we have to go through'em," Kern explained.
The floats will also be a little different than the typical Mardi Gras parade. There will feature animatronic characters, and custom lighting.
Parade time starts at 11 a.m.. Kern says not only with Tulane playing Uptown in the AAC championship game at 3 p.m., LSU is also playing at the same time in the SEC championship game.
"I said to myself, 'this is not a good time to have a parade, against all these games.' So we moved the time to 11 a.m."
The parade starts at Elysian Fields Ave. and N. Peters St., and heads along the edge of the French Quarter along N. Peters and Decatur, then back to N. Peters. It will turn up Canal St. then take a left on St. Charles Ave. It comes to an end at a holiday concert and festival at Lafayette Square.
