# How to Plan a Mardi Gras Parade > How to plan a Mardi Gras parade, from krewe structure and throws safety to rider harnesses, barricades, alcohol policy, and cleanup at scale. A Mardi Gras parade breaks most of the rules that govern [ordinary parade planning](/resources/how-to-plan-a-parade). Spectators come to catch things, so your riders spend the whole route throwing objects at a crowd pressing toward the floats. Everything downstream of that one fact changes: barricades, insurance, rider rules, cleanup, even where families stand. This guide covers how to plan a Mardi Gras parade, whether you are organizing in Louisiana or bringing carnival to a town that has never seen a throw parade. ## Work backward from the carnival calendar Carnival season opens on Twelfth Night, January 6, and ends on Mardi Gras Day, also called Fat Tuesday. Fat Tuesday falls 47 days before Easter, so the date moves every year, landing anywhere from early February to early March. Look up the date for your target year before you plan anything else. An early Mardi Gras compresses the season to about four weeks of parade-ready weekends; a late one gives you eight or nine. Most communities stack parades into the final two weekends before Fat Tuesday, which creates a problem ordinary parades never face: multiple krewes rolling the same route within days of each other, each one needing the same [closures and detours](/resources/parade-road-closures). Publish the season calendar early, stagger start times so cleanup crews can finish between parades, and be honest about how many events the neighborhood will tolerate. Residents who love parade one are calling the city about parade six. January and February weather is the other calendar reality. Build a go/no-go call 3–4 hours before roll into every parade date, and decide in advance whether a washout reschedules or dies for the year. Open krewe applications 6–12 months before the season. That sounds early until you account for float construction, overseas throw orders that take months to ship, and permitting that covers the whole season. ## Krewes: who actually builds the parade A krewe is a private membership organization that funds and stages its own parade. Members pay dues, buy their own throws and costumes, and staff their own floats. A captain runs operations, float lieutenants manage individual floats and their riders, and a king, queen, and court serve as the ceremonial face. The krewe ball, dues, and sponsorships pay for everything. For the parade organizer, the krewe is your unit of accountability. You do not manage 800 riders; you manage 20 krewes, and each one signs for its people. Your registration process should require: - A charter or roster identifying leadership and a single responsible contact - Liability insurance naming the parade and the city as additional insureds - Float design submission and a scheduled safety inspection - Signed rider conduct rules and proof of rider safety training - A throw plan confirming nothing on the banned list is loaded Make krewes enforce conduct on their own floats. A float lieutenant who knows every rider will pull an intoxicated member before roll; your marshals will not catch it from the street. ## Throws safety Throws cause more injuries at carnival parades than anything except the floats themselves, and nearly all are preventable. Put these rules in writing, train every rider before parade day, and make float lieutenants enforce them. Underhand toss only, and never at faces. A bag of beads thrown overhand from a double-decker float arrives with real force, and eye injuries are a recurring result. Riders make eye contact, pick one person, and lob. Small children never get thrown to at all: riders hand throws down to them or to the adult holding them. Never throw into a crowd that is surging the float. When spectators push past the barricade line, throwing more product makes the surge worse and pulls people toward the wheels. Train riders to stop throwing, sit down, and wait until security restores the line. It feels unnatural to riders who paid hundreds of dollars for those throws. Drill it anyway. Establish dead zones where throwing stops completely: intersections, turns, and anywhere the crowd crosses the route. Riders lose sight lines on corners, and a throw that pulls a child into a crosswalk during a turn is your worst day. Mark dead zones on the route map, brief them at the rider meeting, and post a marshal at each one. #### ⚠️ Warning Ban these items with no exceptions: glass of any kind, hard or heavy objects, anything with sharp edges, unwrapped food, and whole coconuts or similar heavy novelty throws unless hand-delivered from a stopped or walking-pace float. The hand-delivery rule exists because thrown coconuts put people in the hospital, and the krewes that still give them learned that through litigation. ## Float riders: harnesses, rails, and inspections Falls from floats kill riders. Decades of carnival incidents produced a simple standard: every rider position gets a continuous rail or solid sidewall at waist height minimum, and every rider wears a harness or tether clipped to the float structure for the entire route. Not just while moving. Riders fall during stops, while reaching for throw bags, and while climbing between decks. Your float inspection, scheduled in the final month and spot-checked on parade morning, should verify structural integrity and weight distribution, secure rider positions with rails and anchor points, throw storage that does not block exits or footing, generator and fuel safety on [floats rolling after dark](/resources/night-parade-planning), and clearance against the route's lowest wire and tightest turn. Keep measured heights and widths on file; one oak branch discovered mid-route stops the whole parade. Every float also needs a way for riders to signal the tractor driver to stop immediately. A rider who drops a phone will climb down for it if stopping feels like too much trouble. Make stopping easy. ## Barricade strategy for a throw parade The crowd at a throw parade has a reason to press toward the floats all route long, and you will not barricade every foot of the route, so spend your inventory where surges happen: - Interlocking steel barricade, anchored, at intersections, turns, the start, and the disband area - Continuous runs through your densest blocks with no gaps (a 3-foot gap becomes a funnel) - A buffer lane between barricade and float path wide enough for marshals and medics In quieter residential stretches, a curb line enforced by walking marshals can substitute for steel, but the intersections still get hard barricade. Position security at the barricade line facing the crowd, not the parade. Their job is to spot the surge forming, and it forms behind them if they are watching floats. ## Alcohol policy: write down what you will actually enforce Carnival and alcohol travel together, and pretending otherwise produces a policy nobody follows. For riders, the realistic standard is function and accountability, not prohibition: riders must be sober enough to throw safely and stay harnessed, intoxication is grounds for removal at any point, and a designated sober monitor rides every float with authority to act. Many krewes run a roll call with a fitness check before loading. Glass is banned on floats regardless of contents. For spectators, know your local open container law cold and publish it in every parade announcement. Where public consumption is legal, plan for it: more restrooms than a normal parade, security briefed to intervene early on intoxication rather than after the fight, and clear communication about what gets someone removed. ## Family sections and party sections Do not try to make the whole route family-friendly; designate zones instead. Daytime and early-season parades skew family by nature. For a single parade, publish a family section on a specific stretch with no-alcohol rules, extra security, gentler crowd density, and [signs marking where it starts and ends](/resources/parade-signage), and let the party crowd concentrate elsewhere. Everyone self-sorts when you tell them where to go. If your community uses ladder seats (the seats-on-stepladders tradition for kids), regulate them: set back from the curb at least the height of the ladder, never in intersections, and an adult on the ladder at all times. A ladder tipping into the float lane is a recurring carnival injury you can prevent with one published rule. ## Cleanup at scale Nothing prepares a first-time organizer for the debris field a throw parade leaves. Plan cleanup as a second event with its own staff, budget, and timeline. Storm drains are the expensive problem. Beads wash into catch basins and clog them, and cities that have excavated their drains after carnival season have pulled out beads by the ton. Cover the catch basins along your densest blocks with mesh drain covers before the parade and you will save your public works department real money. Sweep immediately behind the last unit: a follow crew with blowers, brooms, and a street sweeper recovers the route within hours instead of days, which matters when another parade rolls tomorrow. Write krewe cleanup obligations for staging and disband areas into the registration agreement, and set up bead donation bins at the route ends; recycling programs in carnival cities will take everything spectators drop off. ## What it costs Carnival economics run through the krewes: float construction runs $5,000–$50,000 and up, riders commonly spend $1,000–$10,000 each on throws, costumes run $200–$2,000 per rider, and insurance and permits total $2,000–$10,000 or more per season, covered by dues, ball tickets, sponsorships, and year-round fundraising. Your organizer budget concentrates on what krewes cannot provide: barricades, security, medical, restrooms, permits, and a cleanup operation sized for tonnage. #### 📋 Parade week essentials - [ ] Final float inspections passed, heights and widths on file - [ ] Rider roll call, fitness check, and conduct briefing per float - [ ] Throw inventory spot-checked against the banned list - [ ] Dead zones marked and marshals assigned to each - [ ] Catch basin covers installed on the densest blocks - [ ] Follow-sweep crew and equipment staged at the route start ## Frequently asked questions ### When should I start planning a Mardi Gras parade? Open krewe applications 6–12 months before carnival season and lock your route and permits at least six months out. Float construction and bulk throw orders both take months, and the parade date shifts every year with Easter, so confirm your target Fat Tuesday date first. ### What throws are banned at Mardi Gras parades? Standard banned lists include glass of any kind, hard or heavy objects, items with sharp edges, and unwrapped food. Heavy novelty throws like coconuts are allowed only if hand-delivered, never thrown. Riders should throw underhand, never at faces, and hand items directly to small children. ### Do Mardi Gras float riders have to wear harnesses? In cities with mature carnival ordinances, yes: riders must be tethered or harnessed to the float structure for the entire route, with rails or sidewalls at waist height minimum. Falls from floats are the deadliest recurring carnival accident, so adopt this standard even where local law does not require it. ### What is a krewe? A krewe is a private membership organization that funds and stages its own carnival parade. Members pay dues and buy their own throws and costumes, a captain runs operations, and float lieutenants manage individual floats. Parade organizers hold each krewe accountable for its members rather than managing riders one by one.