Special Events & Weekly Happenings
Curated by Locals for Quarter Lovers Everywhere
Our list of special French Quarter events is curated by local insiders and updated weekly!
Photo: River Fest by Melanie Cole for FQJ. Find full details on our curated FQ Events page! 
Regularly scheduled French Quarter events in our Cultural Corridor – tours, talks, live music performances, cooking demos & more. They’re categorized and sorted by day of the week – and there’s an interactive map too!
Photo: Wanda Rouzan at the New Orleans Jazz MuseumNovember 2026
After 35 years behind the lens, a noted photographer reflects on the people who shaped the French Quarter and the spirits they’ve left behind.
– by Cheryl Gerber
From searching for shamans to crafting Voodoo candles, this French Quarter resident has led a truly charmed life.
– by Doug Brantley
October 2026
After 35 years behind the lens, a noted photographer reflects on the people who shaped the French Quarter and the spirits they’ve left behind.
– by Cheryl Gerber
From searching for shamans to crafting Voodoo candles, this French Quarter resident has led a truly charmed life.
– by Doug Brantley
In New Orleans, the celebration of Dia de los Muertos has found a home - in a city that already knew how to dance with its dead.
– by Karla Marie “Karlita” Cochran
In October, the church celebrated its 185th birthday - and its return to the historic sanctuary nearly five years after it was severely damaged by Hurricane Ida.
- photos by Melanie Cole and Ellis Anderson
This year, the museum’s annual soirée seemed even more magical, celebrating the 200th birthday of the beloved historic house.
- photos by Ellis Anderson
The Storyville Museum hosted this annual mini-soiree for the Vieux Carré Commission Foundation offering a spellbinding evening with live music, spooktacular refreshments and a lively costume contest.
- photos by Melanie Cole
The Forgotten Mexican Roots of New Orleans Jazz
A Mexican Cavalry band performing for the 1884 - 1885 World’s Exposition in New Orleans created a sensation, but their influence can still be heard in our music today.
– by Baylee Badawy
Street trees in the Vieux Carré: Meet a few of our hardy neighbors that survive – and even thrive – in the dense urban fabric of the French Quarter.
– by Helen Sierminski
As a child, she dreamed of being an artist; now, after six decades as a Jackson Square fixture, she’s still finding time to dream.
– by Michael J. Warner
It was a dark and stormy night, with creatures from the murky marshes parading through the Quarter, heralding the Halloween season.
- photos by Melanie Cole
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photo: Paradegoers at Krewe of Boo parade 2025, photo by Ellis Anderson
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September 2026
A new exhibit and book, “Bunny Matthews: His Life, Art, and Obsessions,” celebrates “da real New Oyunz cultcha” and the man who drew it.
– by Doug Brantley
Two newer parades – one led by an ancient alpine Yuletide creature and the other by a shaggy swamp monster – are helping lead the way in sustainability, accessibility and creativity.
– by Matt Sheen
The visitor count thins and locals flee whenever possible, but summer in New Orleans offers up memorable family times – even if “the humidity slaps you in the face like a screen door so hard you swear you can hear the hinge.”
– by Elisa Cool Murphy
A parade through Jackson Square and along the river leads to a day of music at the New Orleans Jazz Museum each year for River Fest.
- photos by Melanie Cole
For more than half a century, the city’s arts conservatory has been fostering local talents and bringing “wildest dreams” to life.
– by Doug Brantley
Bogdan Mynka’s meteoric rise from guest residency to executive director at the Marigny Opera House has reinforced his commitment to serve the city that’s embraced him.
– by Kim Ranjbar
Which was hotter – the weather or the costumes? Thousands lined the streets of the French Quarter to see the 54th edition of this ribald parade.
- photos by Cheryl Gerber
“We drank because they told us we couldn’t…” Undeterred by a constitutional amendment, the threat of arrest, or the very real possibility of drinking bootlegged poison, the French Quarter’s party roared on throughout the 1920s.
– by John Shelton Reed
August 2026
Stories, Photo Features & Quarter Kaleidoscope
Dolly Parton may have passed, but 700 New Orleans women in the Krewe of Dolly will carry on her legacy by wearing big wigs, glittering rhinestones – and giving books to thousands of children.
– by Karla Marie “Karlita” Cochran
The 4th annual family-friendly parade by Krewe du Fool included a giant puppet show, a pageant, a parade along the riverfront and a costume contest – all to benefit the Audubon Institute Education Department.
- photos by Karla Marie “Karlita” Cochran
Frank Perez: 1968 - 2026
Frank’s stories were always a heavy pour – his writing could quickly intoxicate listeners and readers, bringing on a kind of double vision where suddenly, the past existed alongside the present.
– by Ellis Anderson
The beloved historic house museum and gardens welcomed the neighborhood to an evening birthday bash, offering dozens of cakes, a cake walk, and dancing in the streets.
- photos by Ellis Anderson
Did the charms cast to protect her as a child in the Tremé help save her life more than thirty years later when she met a serial killer?
~ by Denise Augustine
Led by heritage and history, a young New Orleanian comes of age in the Vieux Carré, developing a lifelong love of the French language.
~ by Scott Bazenet-Tilton
More than 125 years have passed since Joey DiFatta’s ancestors found their first home on Bourbon Street - only a block from where he lives now.
~ by Joey DiFatta
This culture bearer from the cradle grew up in the shadow of “some of the coolest cats around.”
~ by Eric Burt
The French Quarter’s most popular art event of the year takes place in August - yet the heat didn’t phase regional art lovers who turned up in droves.
- photos by Shawn Fink and Ellis Anderson
A young Marine on leave visits New Orleans and winds up at the Wrong Place – only to find the city is exactly the right place.
~ by Amzie Adams
Reader Favorites
from our archives
Cindy Brennan, the managing partner of one of New Orleans’ favorite restaurants, reflects on family, hospitality, and nearly 50 years of success.
– by Kim Ranjbar
In the mid-1960s, a young Southern Baptist pastor moves to the French Quarter, becomes King of the Hippies and helps transform New Orleans mask-making into an art form.
— by Laura Guccione
The venerable New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival was inspired by two earlier fests - one in 1965 and a much larger event in 1968 – yet, the timing couldn’t have been worse for either. Peek behind the curtain for the backstories.
– by Bethany Ewald Bultman
Royal Street phenom Christian Davenport, otherwise known as “Cubs the Poet”, finds a permanent space for his art – and his trusty typewriter – in the Shops at the Upper Pontalba.
– by Kim Ranjbar
Meet the man who helped put the historic Faubourg Marigny neighborhood on the map – and is working still to keep it there.
– by Doug Brantley
Ten years after Louisiana’s Jim Crow laws led Armstrong to swear off performing in New Orleans, a determined committee from the city’s nascent jazz museum convinced him to return for a ground-breaking concert – one that helped pave the way for change.
– by Bethany Ewald Bultman
Bridging the business and art worlds, the ArtEgg Studios founder provides “a creative space for creative people.”
– by Doug Brantley
The French Quarter offers a blueprint for sustainability: timeless design always outshines transient trends. On Earth Day, we explore innovations to dazzle our wardrobes and make a positive impact.
– by Bethany Ewald Bultman
The Kentucky Derby-winning racehorse trainer isn’t one to gamble, but he’s all in on French Quarter life.
– by Doug Brantley
An educational nonprofit settles into a new home in the French Quarter, where it’s raising awareness on sustainability – and offering fun, colorful solutions through the art of sewing.
– by Kim Ranjbar
The French Quarter’s new Riverfront Park opened on April 7th, to the delight of locals, visitors, city officials, neighborhood activists, and the project team.
- photos by Ellis Anderson
The backstory of the new Riverfront Park – and the behind-the-scenes community advocates who never gave up. A story first published in April, 2024.
– by Frank Perez
The French Quarter’s newest museum examines the city’s notorious red-light district through an entrepreneurial eye.
– by Doug Brantley
This extraordinary online library – containing photographs, drawings and records of ownership of every French Quarter building – has received a show-stopping makeover.
- by John S. Sledge
The co-owner of Mona Lisa Restaurant on Royal recounts how he and husband Tom Moore took over the reins of the beloved neighborhood eatery in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
– by Farrow Stephenson
A new book by writer Dalt Wonk and photographer Josephine Sacabo unflinchingly documents a five-decade love affair between the two artists and their abiding passion for New Orleans.
– by Richard Goodman
Over the past 30 years, this casual neighborhood fixture has quietly become a French Quarter classic by offering a distinctive Creole/Italian menu, farm to table ingredients, a great wine list – and an unbeatable ambiance.
Preserving the Narrative at The Celestine
A classic French Quarter building with a storied past has been recreated into an alluring boutique hotel – named after one of its historic owners, Celestine Peychaud.
– by Kim Ranjbar
Founded in 2012, this powerhouse organization works to bring New Orleans’ queer history out of the closet and into the open.
– by Doug Brantley
photo above by Owen Murphy and part of the LGBT+ Archives of Louisiana
A journalist turned buggy driver reflects on the people who live in his unusual workplace - a combination historic museum, adult amusement park, and a residential neighborhood.
– by Mark Orfila
A visionary young doctor purchases a derelict historic building in 1996 and spends the next decade transforming it into one of the most stately homes in the French Quarter.
– by Karen Hinton
The French Quarter erupted with spontaneous joy – and of course, music – as a record-breaking ten inches of powdery snow fell on New Orleans on January 21st.
- album by Shawn Fink + more
Fire is the mortal enemy of the city's oldest neighborhood, but in the case of the 1988 Cabildo inferno, dedicated preservationists prevailed in the end.
- by Michael Warner
In 1980 and again in 1983, a Mobile, Ala. writer named Frank Daugherty interviewed Thelma Ducoing Toole, mother of the late John Kennedy Toole, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Confederacy of Dunces. The lions’ share of the material and Frank’s photos have never before been published.
- interview and photographs by Frank Daugherty
Follow Alessandrini's significant public works along the river and through the Quarter, then visit with the artist in his Howard Avenue studio.
- by Saskia Ozols
A look at the famous playwright's complex and lifelong relationship with the neighborhood where he brought "A Streetcar Named Desire" into being.
- by Richard Goodman
Was the matronly New Orleans stenographer who founded a French Quarter temple the guru everyone in the 1960s was seeking? At least one follower still believes.
- by Michael Warner
Ride along with this award-winning writer to learn a few of the everyday challenges - and unexpected rewards - of making a living as a French Quarter pedicabber.
- by Andrew Cominelli
In the Roaring ‘20s, feisty Uptown socialite Martha Westfeldt opens a French Quarter bookstore that becomes Bohemia Central.
- by Michael Warner
The rise of homelessness during the pandemic reminds a French Quarter writer of a luckless time in her youth, when a spontaneous act of generosity turned the tide.
– by Ellis Anderson
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