My First Mardi Gras

This is my first Mardi Gras ever. As a new transplant to New Orleans this means I have the dubious pleasure to experience it as both a local and a newcomer, a feat that is leaving me (a few days in) exhausted. Yes I know, Red Bull is my friend. Yes I know, power through. Yes I know, take breaks when you need to but soak it all in because it's peoples' favorite holiday of the year.

All of these things are true. But I have the added esteemed pleasure to be documenting it for you courtesy of My Mardi Gras Experience. A site dedicated to rebranding Mardi Gras as the family-filled event it is. The creation of Tom Martin and the Zehnder Communications team, last year it was a stream on Twitter spreading the joy of Mardi Gras to people everywhere. This year it's bloggers from around the country brought into town to blog, take photos and videos and capture all that is Mardi Gras courtesy of Tabasco and hotels provided by Sheraton.

As a shout out to my fellow bloggers in My Mardi Gras Experience, I created a Twitter List with all of them that you can subscribe to HERE.

You can also follow @MyMardiGras and visit the website HERE.

More on the genesis of My Mardi Gras from Tom Martin:

MyMardiGrasExperience.com is an outgrowth of a Twitter experiment I ran last Mardi Gras. I was curious to see if by inviting a bunch of folks to follow me in exchange for the promise of great Mardi Gras content, I could then change their perception of Mardi Gras by only sending up family friendly content. You can read all about the experiment and see the social media case study at my blog.

So this year, I thought I’d make it more fun by inviting a few fellow bloggers to play along. And then they invited a few of their fellow bloggers. And now we have about 10-15 of us that will be spread out all over Mardi Gras and sharing in real-time via Twitter and this blog our 2010 Mardi Gras experience. We’ll be sending up pictures, videos, tweets and posts and doing our best to make sure you don’t miss anything.

Lastly, you’ll want to make sure you tune in to see our live coverage of all of the big Mardi Gras parades. We’re going to stream them live right here on MyMardiGrasExperience.com and on Fat Tuesday (February 16) we’re even going to give you a live stream from a float. So for the first time in the history of Mardi Gras, you’ll be able to see Mardi Gras from the vantage point of a Mardi Gras Float Rider — but remember, you have to mask if you’re on a float. So get yours ready and tune in Tuesday, February 16 around 11am to see what it is like to be a rider in the famous Rex Parade.

Enjoy Mardi Gras! I know I will. If we're not covering something you want to know more about, just drop me a line and let me know at sloane (at) thecausemopolitan (dot) com or on Twitter.