New Orleans Mardi Gras - End of Each Mardi Gras

End of Each Mardi Gras

The formal end of Mardi Gras arrives with "the Meeting of the Courts", a term describing the ceremony at which Rex and His Royal Consort, the King and Queen of Carnival, meet with Comus and his Queen at the ball of the Mistick Krewe of Comus, New Orleans' oldest active Carnival organization. The Meeting of the Courts happens at the conclusion of the two groups' masked balls, which in modern times have both been held at the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium. Since 2006, following Hurricane Katrina, the Ball has been held in the Marriott Hotel.

Promptly at the stroke of midnight at the end of Fat Tuesday, a mounted squad of New Orleans police officers make a show of clearing upper Bourbon Street where the bulk of out-of-town revelers congregate, announcing that Mardi Gras is over, as it is the start of Lent, commencing with Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday (the day after Fat Tuesday) is sometimes jokingly referred to as "Trash Wednesday" because of the amount of refuse left in the streets by the previous day's celebrations. The tons of garbage picked up by the city sanitation department is a local news item, as it also reflects the positive economic impact of tourists at each year's celebration of Mardi Gras.