Southern Decadence is a 5-day weekend of costumes, revelry and parades celebrating the LGBT community that brings over 150,000 people and a nearly $200 million economic impact. Decadence started at a party of friends and roommates throwing a going-away party for a friend in 1972 in their inauspicious Treme home nicknamed Belle Reve after the Mississippi plantation Blanche DuBois’ refers to in A Streetcar Named Desire so the roommates (including gays, straights, blacks and whites) made the send-off a costume party with the theme of coming as your favorite “Southern Decadent.” They chose the Sunday before Labor Day to give themselves a day of recovery afterward then repeated the party the following year with an informal parade. Over 40 years later, the all-inclusive party is bigger and more decadent than ever. Continue reading
Tag Archives: gay
Southern Decadence (someone left their gay out in the rain)
While my phone rang repeatedly with calls from loved ones fearing for my safety from tropical storm Lee due to overzealous and tourism-damaging reporting, I enjoyed a Labor Day weekend in the French Quarter during the largest gay event in New Orleans,Southern Decadence. Just like you don’t have to be Irish to enjoy our St. Patricks celebrations, you don’t have to be part of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community to enjoy the parades, outdoor concerts and shear spectacle of Decadence. Continue reading