Watch Live: Mardi Gras 2023 in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — The "biggest party in the world" has returned again to the streets of New Orleans.

Revelers decked out in traditional purple, green, and gold are ready to take to the streets on Mardi Gras for back-to-back parades, and marches through the French Quarter and beyond.

The party starts before dawn as the North Side Skull & Bone Gang, dressed as skeletons wake up the city's Treme neighborhood, reminding everyone of their mortality. From then on it was “Let the good times roll,” with celebrations in just about every corner of the city, leading up to a ceremonial clearing of Bourbon Street at midnight.

“If you think about the complex logistics, over multiple neighborhoods, multiple krewes, multiple law enforcement agencies — this is like Times Square on New Year's Eve for two weeks,” Kelly Schulz of New Orleans & Company, the city tourism industry's trade association, said.

Complicating that effort has been a rise in crime and a shortage of police officers, which somewhat muted the celebration's comeback last year. Since parades in 2021 were canceled because of security concerns and the pandemic, some of the routes for the 2022 parades were trimmed.

This year, the original routes have been restored and the local police department is bolstered by a contingent of 125 state troopers and another 170 law enforcement personnel from other state and local police agencies to help keep order. By various estimates, the local police force has dwindled to about 900 members, which is hundreds fewer than what local experts say is needed.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell and other city officials said they are confident safety can be maintained.

Joe Bikulege — co-owner of Le Bon Temps Roule, a neighborhood bar and music club on Magazine Street — said that businesses and residents welcome the restored routes. “People get traditions and routines based around seeing certain parades,” he said in a recent interview.

“That's been taken away for three years,” he said.

And, Schulz said, it appears tourists are planning to return in strong numbers.

“We are seeing strong hotel bookings so far,” Schulz said. “We are seeing a lot of pent-up demand for travelers to come back to New Orleans. For many this will be their first time, since before COVID, experiencing Mardi Gras.”

Mardi Gras is the culmination of Carnival season — which officially begins each year on Jan. 6, the 12th day after Christmas, known as King's Day, in New Orleans and closes with the arrival of Lent on Ash Wednesday.

New Orleans’ raucous celebration is the nation’s most well-known, but the holiday is also celebrated throughout much of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. Mobile, Alabama, lays claim to the oldest Mardi Gras celebration in the country.

WWL-TV presents Mardi Gras Parade Tracker. We are New Orleans' premier Mardi Gras parade tracking service. We cover more parades in more areas of the city than any other app available on the market.

Here's where to download the WWL-TV parade tracker for your phone:            

[Click here to download for IOS]

[Click here to download for Android]

How do we do it? The short answer is: brute force. We deploy an army of dedicated, warm-blooded (and sober) human beings with GPS devices to walk the entire parade route of every parade we track. We physically track 67 of the biggest parades during Mardi Gras starting with Krewe De Vieux and ending with Rex on Mardi Gras day. Whether you are Uptown or in the French Quarter, in Metairie or on the West Bank, Chalmette, Houma, Thibodaux, or Covington, you can count on us to provide the exact location of the parade you want to see.

Our App includes parade schedules, routes, and real-time GPS location.

Click here to report a typo.

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Reporting by Kevin McGill, Rebecca Santana, and Janet McConnaughey with The Associated Press contributed to this story.