Spanish Town Parade
Spanish Town
Baton Rouge
Feb. 14, 2026
The first throw I caught at the Spanish Town Parade this year was a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs. A sea of thousands of people clad in pink gathered downtown, beads were in the air, and floats were full of boob stress balls, penis beads and toys/stuffed animals for little kids — because in typical Spanish Town fashion, there were a ton of kids there.
The Spanish Town Parade, the biggest Mardi Gras Parade in Baton Rouge, has a history of being irreverent. But through the years of the parade, the tradition has evolved from an alt culture Mardi Gras celebration to an organized yet bizarre institution. This year’s theme – Pink, Proud, and Provocative – was basically a license to lean into the Valentine’s Day of it all. The floats felt less bound to the theme than last year's parade, which was set in honor of Smiley Anders, a beloved columnist for the Advocate and resident of Spanish Town who passed away the year prior.
This year's parade featured floats adorned with conversation hearts and the neighborhood’s signature pink flamingos. The Golden Guys, an all-male dance troupe, performed in their signature LSU colors with pink socks and poms poms on their shoes. Street vendors hawked feather boas and glow sticks. People broke out their shiniest, pinkest and most provocative outfits for the parade.
Mardi Gras is a celebration, a last hurrah before Ash Wednesday (at least traditionally). The floats themselves also pay tribute to old friends and former Krewe members who have passed away. There were custom-printed banners, posters, and even themes influenced by these tributes. Several floats still made reference to Smiley Anders. Some simply placed photos on the front or back of their floats. “Our Favorite Flockstar,” the poster on one float reads next to a photo of a woman decked out in pink.
It’s a part of the Mardi Gras tradition that isn’t communicated well to outsiders. It’s easy to gawk at the phenomenon of flashing for beads (which I still have yet to see anyone actually do) or taking shots out of syringes from the parade floats (messy, but does actually happen). It’s fun to see the objects that can count as parade throws: an entire kid’s bike, a bamboo spear, beads the size of tennis balls. But the tributes to those who aren’t here anymore are an explicit manifestation of the bittersweetness of the holiday season. We used to do this together, and now I have to do it without you. You don’t have to be part of a decades-long Mardi Gras Krewe to understand that feeling. Maybe you do have to be in one to create a tribute that is seen by thousands of cheering people grasping for beads.
It often feels hard to acknowledge the good with the bad, to celebrate even though part of your heart breaks for what could/should be. In that, maybe the Mardi Gras Krewe members have something figured out that the rest of us don’t.
