28 Best Things to Do in New Orleans Beyond Bourbon Street | Condé Nast Traveler

"An anonymous warehouse by the Port of New Orleans is home to a huge working studio, and inside, it looks like something akin to a movie production. It’s not somewhere you’d pass by ordinarily, but most tour companies and hotels will promote it. It’s not so much a collection as it is a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into the country's biggest free party–Mardi Gras. The huge floats take months to build and decorate, and this is where a large part of that happens. Painters and sculptures are actually working on pieces as you walk through, and it feels like being let in on a secret. The space houses whatever is being built that year, so it’s luck of the draw what you see—although just nearly all the floats are impressive in their scale and level of detail." - Paul Oswell