NOLA Events

New Orleans’ oldest annual sporting event, originating in 1935

The Rock ‘n’ Roll New Orleans Marathon & 1/2 Marathon benefiting Feed The Children takes participants along a majestic journey throughout the city. Rockin’ bands and spirited cheer squads line the streets of historic neighborhoods, including St. Charles Avenue and the French Quarter. After racing this fast and flat course below sea level, y’all deserve the best post race experience to celebrate your accomplishment! This year’s Finish Line Celebration will feature flavorful, local cuisine typical of the Big Easy!

New Orleans’ Mardi Gras is the world’s most famous street party… and with good reason! The annual celebration of excess overtakes the French Quarter and crowds the streets with wildly costumed revelers!

The BUKU Music + Art Project is a two-day music and arts festival held annually at Mardi Gras World. BUKU seeks to serve as a platform for the intersection of pop culture and the New Orleans underground arts community, and combines international musicians with local food vendors, local visual artists, and various surprise pop-up street performers throughout the site. BUKU’s musical tastes are a relatively even mix of electronic dance music (EDM), hip-hop and indie-rock.

See the city go Green for this annual event!

The festival is an annual five-day celebration held in late March, which showcases national and regional scholars, writers, and performing artists. Programs include panel discussions, theatrical performances, a one-act play competition, lectures, literary walking tours, musical performances, and a book fair.

You can’t get more New Orleans than this showcase for hundreds of local musicians on 14 stages throughout the historic Vieux Carré. There’s jazz, from Dixieland to contemporary and brass bands, classical, Cajun and Zydeco, rhythm and blues, gospel and everything else in between. One can sample classic New Orleans cuisine from nearly 60 food and drink booths, tour private patios, enjoy fireworks over the Mississippi River, participate in children’s activities, join in a second-line parade, attend art exhibits & music workshops and lots more.

Jazz Fest celebrates a passion for a style of music wild yet disciplined, chaotic yet ordered…a musical gumbo of tastes authentically New Orleanian in the number and variety of its ingredients. The 10-day cultural and musical festival has grown into the nation’s premier music showcase, welcoming over 500,000 visitors to the Big Easy every year.

The Zurich Classic of New Orleans golf tournament is Louisiana’s premier golf tournament and the PGA TOUR’s annual stop in New Orleans. This world-class event features golf’s biggest names combined with the city’s greatest food and music – right on the course! This is the PGA TOUR New Orleans style.

The Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo is a free, three-day, family-friendly music and arts festival located on the historic banks of New Orleans’ Bayou Saint John.

The New Orleans Oyster Festival is a free two-day, family-friendly event celebrating the restaurateurs and oyster farmers who have solidified the New Orleans French Quarter’s position as the “Oyster Capital of America,” and help raise funds for “Coastal Restoration.” Fantastic music and fantastic oyster dishes aplenty!

New Orleans is a place of pilgrimage for foodies and wine enthusiasts throughout the year, but never more so than during the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience… this non-stop celebration of the joys of the grape and the sublime ecstasies of fine food. The Wine & Food Experience constitutes five basic events – Vintner Dinners, The Royal Street Experience, Seminars, Grand Tastings, and Brunch. Each of these is an event unto itself, and all are eagerly anticipated.

The Louisiana Cajun & Zydeco Festival, produced by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest collection of Cajun and zydeco artists for any festival in the city and perhaps the state. Over twenty groups playing on three stages over two days and admission is free.

The annual French Market Creole Tomato Festival celebrates one of southeastern Louisiana’s most iconic and beloved produce items. Besides bountiful fresh Creole tomatoes for sale, there are cooking demonstrations, food booths, live music, children’s activities, and even a recently added Creole Tomato eating contest.

When New Orleans throws a party, everybody shows up! Expect this Go Fourth on the River celebration to be more of the same, as thousands flock to the Crescent City to watch a truly spectacular display of fireworks echoing off the man-made canyons of downtown New Orleans and reflecting off the Mighty Mississippi. New Orleans celebrates our nation’s Independence with a full day’s worth of events. The entire riverfront gets into the act, with many area businesses hosting special Independence-themed shows.

The annual Essence Festival not only zeroes in on African-American-oriented forms of music but also offers “empowerment seminars” that help educate and inform the African-American community…and there’s no shortage of attendees!

Tales of the Cocktail is the world’s premier cocktail festival, bringing together the international spirits community for five days of what’s now, what’s new and what’s next in bartending. This event has something for bartenders and spirits professionals with opportunities to mix and mingle with the brightest minds in mixology during an always-spirited schedule of seminars, dinners, competitions, tasting rooms and new product launches.

FestiGals is a weekend festival dedicated to celebrating women! Fashion, food, friendship and fun, FestiGals is the original girlfriend getaway for women to recharge and reconnect with a relaxing, festive and authentic New Orleans experience. Whether you’re in the mood to shop, eat, drink, and explore local culture and history or just relax and be pampered, FestiGals has you covered.

It truly is a “wonderful world,” as jazz great Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong told us in his haunting 1968 hit song. Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong gained fame through his incredible musical talents and through these talents, increased New Orleans’ standing as a city of international cultural significance. New Orleans repays this debt with the Satchmo Summer Fest, a three-day celebration of the life, legacy, and music of “Satchmo.” Satchmo Summer Fest is a weekend’s worth of musical performances, lively seminars, captivating exhibits, children’s activities, great New Orleans food, and partying New Orleans-style!

Named for a long tradition of trying to beat the summer evening heat, White Linen Night has become a staple in late-summer activities for the people of New Orleans. Wearing white linens, as the name would suggest, travelers and locals take to a friendly stroll down the streets of the Art District. And the artwork on display in New Orleans’ fabled French Quarter is stunning. One is able to view a wide selection of art; from the most avant of avant garde to traditionalist paintings in a dozen styles. Dirty Linen Night is Royal Street’s version and takes place a week later.

Red Dress Run is an annual costumed 5k(ish) run through the Marigny neighborhood in early August to raise money for breast cancer research, among other charities. The event is sponsored by the Hash House Harriers, a self-proclaimed “drinking club with a running problem.” Wearing a red dress is an absolute requirement and you must be 21 to participate.

Three days of live music boasting great local and national bands, fabulous seafood dishes from the city’s finest restaurants and live cooking demonstrations featuring celebrity chefs.

New Orleans’ Annual Southern Decadence, nicknamed the “Gay Mardi Gras” is a French Quarter-wide celebration of LGBT life, music and culture. Elaborate and colorful costumes, drag shows, contests and parties happen all day and all night during this marathon weekend.

Fantastic new festival, held in beautiful Cassidy Park in Bogalusa, LA celebrates blues music and its heritage. This two-day festival features an eclectic roster of local and national blues musicians.

Billed as “3 Days of Music You’ve Never Heard Of,” Ponderosa Stomp celebrates the unsung heroes of American music featuring the architects of rock-n-roll, blues, swamp pop and psychedelic garage rock. Other events include a well-attended music seminar series and one of the best vinyl record shows of the year.

The festival attracts record-breaking crowds and offers year-round programs including the French Film Festival each spring. Labeling the festival, “Cannes on the Mississippi,” the Times-Picayune movie critic David Baron confirmed its importance as a permanent part of the City’s cultural landscape.

Voodoo Fest in City Park brings you some of the hottest local and national bands for this annual 3-day event.

On the corner of Bourbon and Conti you might stumble upon (literally) a gaggle of Elvi out for a stroll… just down the block you could run into howling, growling werewolves… and of course, there’s generally just a bit too much skin exposed in many a costume!

Treme Creole Gumbo Festival features New Orleans Jazz, R&B and the finest collection of New Orleans Brass Bands presented with a huge selection of New Orleans’ signature dish – gumbo, in a variety of styles.

Po-Boy Fest is uniquely New Orleans festival celebrating the humble po-boy sandwich. This is a fantastic all-day event features some of the city’s best music and food.

The Bayou Classic is more than just a football game. This annual event is one of the country’s greatest college sports rivalries, bringing the fans of and alumni of Southern University and Grambling State University to New Orleans each November. A week of events featuring a parade, fan festival and battle of the bands culminates with the Saturday football match-up.

Since 1946, Patio Planters du Vieux Carre has sponsored Caroling in Jackson Square, a truly moving holiday tradition held every year by candlelight on the Sunday before Christmas.

See New Orleans’ historic City Park transformed into a holiday wonderland. Its ancient oak trees are aglow with massive ornaments along a two-mile stretch that is spangled with over two million sparkling lights and lighted displays. Celebration in the Oaks is one of the most beautiful holiday light exhibits in the country, attracting over 500,000 visitors annually.

A large street party, a lit ball dropping from the sky, thousands counting down to the next year – no you’re not in Times Square, but rather Jackson Square! Every year, a week following the relaxation of Christmas, hundreds of thousands pour out to the Jackson Brewery to welcome in another year of living and partying in New Orleans.

Now in its 40th year, the Arts Council New Orleans is a private, nonprofit organization designated as the city’s official arts agency. They are one of eight regional distributing agencies for state arts funds and they administer municipal arts grants as well as the Percent For Art program for the City of New Orleans. The Arts Council also produces the city’s largest arts market on the last Saturday of every month.

Season runs from September – May

The Marigny Opera House a non-denominational, neighborhood church of the arts celebrating the arts as a common spiritual bond among all people. The Marigny Opera House is also home to the Marigny Opera Ballet. Call for schedule of performances.

Call for performance schedule

The history of opera in New Orleans is the history of Opera in America. Evolutionary progress through heredity is reflected in a great culture transplanted from Mother France to the Paris of America, New Orleans, where the first resident opera company in America was founded.

Southern Rep is an award winning, critically acclaimed regional theatre company that produces bold world premieres, the best of Broadway and off-Broadway, and classic plays under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Aimée Hayes. Call for schedule and location of performances.

Season runs October – April

Season runs September – January