Established in 1872, the Rex parade is the oldest and among the most traditional of New Orleans’ Carnival processions. But in 2025 there will be a change, meant to eliminate a Mardi Gras time crunch for some participants.
The Queen of Carnival’s reviewing stand is being moved three miles nearer the start of the route to Pascal’s Manale restaurant, to provide members of the Rex court more time for Mardi Gras activities culminating in the evening ball, which is held at the Sheraton Hotel on Canal Street at 8 p.m.
Members of the Rex court – the queen, maids, debutantes and others who do not ride in the all-male parade — customarily watch the procession from a raised platform along the route. Rex, the king of Carnival, pauses the parade at the queen’s reviewing stand to toast court. The Rex court departs the reviewing stand by 2 p.m.
The Rex parade ideally lasts four hours. But as Rex spokesman Ben Dupuy explained via email: “Regrettably, the Rex court has typically missed viewing at least part of the procession over the last several years.”
For more than three decades, the queen’s reviewing stand has been located at the InterContinental New Orleans at the corner of St. Charles Avenue and Poydras Street. But in 2025 it will be relocated to the 111-year-old restaurant at the corner of Dryades Avenue and Napoleon Avenue.
The shift to a much earlier part of the route, which begins on Napoleon Avenue near South Claiborne Avenue at 10:30 a.m., will hopefully eliminate the need for the Rex court to prematurely rush away. As Dupuy put it, the move “will, for the first time in a long time, allow the Rex court to view the entire Rex parade.”
Because of the growth of Carnival participation in recent years, plus floats hitting trees, road construction and other issues, parades have often run later than anticipated. The Mayor’s Mardi Gras Advisory Council, an organization of krewe captains and others, is seeking ways to speed the flow of New Orleans’ many float parades.