Last year’s Long Beach Mardi Gras king and queen at the coronation of this year’s Queen Michelle Molina (red hat) and King Steve Goodling (purple hat). LBMG coordinator Logan Crow is in the middle. Photo by Bob Maguglin.

Long Beach may be across the country from New Orleans’ famously extravagant Mardi Gras celebration, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still “Laissez les bon temps rouler”—or “Let the good times roll.”

Rain or shine on Saturday, the Long Beach Mardi Gras will return again to Shoreline Village where a family-friendly day of music, art, food and dancing is scheduled to be hosted at the waterfront adjacent shopping and entertainment center. 

Official festivities are scheduled from 1PM to 7PM, with live bands and specialty New Orleans-style specialty food available at businesses and restaurants throughout the Shoreline area. The day’s central event is the Mardi Gras parade, which will go from the Aquarium of the Pacific to Shoreline Village starting at 3PM and will feature everyone from dancers to stilt-walkers to mimes and more. 

Mardi Gras is the baccanal-like celebration hosted during the time before Ash Wednesday, which is the start of the Catholic season of Lent. Europeans for centuries have hosted elaborate parties and parades where residents wear costumes and masks and dance in city streets, but it wasn’t until French immigrants brought the party-like tradition to the South in the 1700s that it became an American celebration as well. 

Long Beach’s Mardi Gras is coordinated by Logan Crow of the Long Beach Cinematheque in collaboration with Shoreline Village and the DLBA. It will run concurrently and alongside the separate but related Long Beach Carnevale, which is modeled after the Venetian Carnival celebration held during the same time in Italy. Venice’s Carnevale emphasizes spectacular costumes, masks and photography; it is the only Venetian-inspired Carnevale of its kind in greater Los Angeles.

Long Beach Mardi Gras and Long Beach Carnevale will take place on Saturday February 9. For more information on programming, see schedule below:

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