The Venice Beach Mardi Gras Parade on the Venice Beach Boardwalk

Date/Time
Date(s) - 02/14/2015
11:00 am - 4:00 pm

Location
North City Parking Lot:

Categories

• Annual Events
• Arts and culture
• Featured Event

—-

—

VENICE HISTORY:  Venice held its first annual Mardi Gras Festival August 16-18, 1935. The three day event featuring parades, costumes, contests and entertainment, was modeled after the New Orleans event. It was conceived by the local businessmen as a commercial enterprise that would publicize the community, attract large crowds and require cooperation of people from many segments of the populace. King Neptune crowns Queen Venetia. It began with the arrival of King Neptune in an outrigger canoe followed by Queen Venetia’s coronation and a royal procession along Ocean Front Walk. The queen read a proclamation commanding her subjects to engage in three days of fun and frivolity. The afternoon parade featured floats and costumed merrymakers wearing enormous plaster of paris heads that were manufactured in Arthur Reese’s studio. Windward Avenue was roped off for a street carnival where wandering gondoliers entertained. The parade included Keystone Cops and people wearing enormous plaster of paris head gear. The king and queen’s float along Venice’s Ocean Front Walk. – 1938. There was an afternoon treasure hunt for children and an evening program of aquatic events on Saturday. Sunday’s Miss California beauty pageant drew huge crowds, and a Mardi Gras Ball in the evening capped the celebration. The Mardi Gras Festival became an annual event of considerable importance prior to World War II. It became bigger and better each succeeding year and civic pride improved. By 1941 five hundred thousand people attended the expanded four day event in its final year. -FROM AN ARTICLE WRITTEN BY JEFFREY STANTON (Historian-Photographer)

–

For more history on Venice, check out Jeffrey Stanton’s website visit, http://www.westland.net/venice/stanton.htm and purchase and read his book “Venice California-The Cooney Island of the Pacific”.

For more info: