"To get the feeling of Mardi Gras year-round, visit Mardi Gras World, the largest float designing and building facility in the world. Here more than 80 percent of the floats that journey down New Orleans' streets during the Carnival season are designed and built<" the New Orleans says.

"Begun in 1947 by float designer and builder Blaine Kern, Mardi Gras World provides visitors with the opportunity to don authentic Mardi Gras costumes and tour enormous warehouses filled with floats. The tour includes a short video and guide who is quite knowledgeable about Mardi Gras history and customs. And for a taste of Mardi Gras, king cake and piping hot New Orleans coffee are served.

"During the tour, visitors learn about the many traditions surrounding Mardi Gras parades, balls and music, as well as the intricacies of float designing and building. Mardi Gras floats began rumbling down New Orleans streets in 1837 with mule-drawn carriages. Today the tradition continues with sophisticated mega-floats, which hold more than 200 masked riders and are lit with fiber optic cables and laser lights."

"Mardi Gras World (also known as Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World, MGW) is a tourist attraction located in New Orleans. Guests tour the 300,000 square foot working warehouse where floats are made for Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans. Mardi Gras World is located along the Mississippi River, next to the New Orleans Morial Convention Center. Their events venue, the River City Complex, also hosts festivals, weddings, private parties and corporate events.

"In 1946, Blaine Kern, Sr. founded Blaine Kern Artists. Kern came from a family of float builders, but began creating floats after 1947, when a surgeon and krewe captain who had seen a mural by Kern hired him to create floats for the Krewe of Alla.[3] Kern's business expanded from there. Kern, who traveled to Europe to learn float building techniques, has gained an international reputation in float building, with floats beyond New Orleans for Las Vegas, Mobile, Galveston, Montreal and the Universal Studios Mardi Gras parade.

"In 1984, Mardi Gras World was created as a tourist attraction to show visitors a behind-the-scenes look at float building. In 2008, Mardi Gras World expanded to a second 300,000-square-foot (28,000 m2) facility, compared to the 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m2) original facility in Algiers, in the former River City Casino." (Wikipedia)

"Blaine Kern traveled throughout Europe to apprentice under the world’s leading float and costume makers. During several trips to Italy, France, and Spain, Blaine became inspired by the extravagant concepts and animation that marked the European style of float building," the official website says.

"He brought these ideas to New Orleans and developed the monumental scale and lavish ornamentation of today’s spectacular Mardi Gras floats. Blaine Kern was instrumental in the formative years of some of New Orleans’ biggest parades and “Super Krewes” and is still known as “Mr. Mardi Gras.”

"Roy and his son Blaine built their first Mardi Gras float together on the back on a mule-drawn wagon in 1932. Unable to pay his mother’s medical bills, Blaine offered to paint a mural in the hospital, which caught the eye of a surgeon who was also the captain of a Mardi Gras Krewe. This captain invited Blaine to design and build floats for his Krewe, and Kern Studios was officially founded in its current form in 1947. One float led to another, and before long Blaine became the city’s leading parade designer and builder, working with Rex, Zulu and other legendary krewes.

"After many requests for private tours of Kern Studios from people wanting a sneak-peak of Mardi Gras, the Kerns decided to open up the working studio to the public. In 1984, Mardi Gras World was created as a tourist attraction to provide visitors a behind-the-scenes look of our work. Widely successful, the attraction draws hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world each year."

"The tour of our working warehouses offers a window into the making of the spectacular parades. This unique, family-friendly attraction ranks among the best quintessential New Orleans activities," the Kern Studios says. With over 200,000 visitors from all over the world each year, Mardi Gras World is an experience you don’t want to miss.

"Kern Studios is now under the third generation of Kern leadership. Blaine’s son Barry Kern is the CEO and President of Kern Studios and Mardi Gras World. Barry has taken Kern Studios from a local Mardi Gras float building company to one of the world’s premier entertainment production and specialty fabrication companies. Kern Studios recently welcomed the fourth generation of leadership. Fitz Kern, Barry’s oldest son, has joined to oversee the company’s operations and strategic planning.

"On the tour, you’ll be paired up with a knowledgeable guide who takes the mask off of Mardi Gras. This all-access opportunity winds you through the massive studio, where artists and architects build Mardi Gras floats from the ground up. You’ll learn about the history and symbolism of this unique and festive tradition."

"Mardi Gras World is at 1380 Port of New Orleans Pl. Blaine Kern Studios designs and builds Mardi Gras floats, props and figures. Approximately 1.5-hour guided tours are offered through a warehouse where floats are displayed and artists and sculptors may be seen working on their creations," the AAA says.

"Visitors are welcomed with Mardi Gras beads and king cake, and the tour includes a brief film about the history of Mardi Gras and float construction. Guided tours are available. Time: Allow 1 hour minimum."

"Mardi Gras World may sound like a theme park, but it is actually a workshop where the elaborate and fantastic floats get made for the annual New Orleans celebration," the Atlas Obscura says.

"The float masters at Blaine Kern Studios have been making traveling tableaus since 1947 and now provide floats to multiple parades around the country all year round. However the biggest event is still the titular Mardi Gras during which the shop produces 80% of the festival’s floats.

"While the shop began from humble roots, the studio now produces floats using huge fiberglass installations, lights, fabrics and sometimes hundreds of reveling riders. The shop provides tours of their facilities year-round and visitors will get to see traditional Mardi Gras costumes, floats-in-progress, and even get to sample some of the festival treat, King Cake."

"Mardi Gras is a Christian holiday and popular cultural phenomenon that dates back thousands of years to pagan spring and fertility rites. Also known as Carnival or Carnaval, it’s celebrated in many countries around the world—mainly those with large Roman Catholic populations—on the day before the religious season of Lent begins. Brazil, Venice and New Orleans play host to some of the holiday’s most famous public festivities, drawing thousands of tourists and revelers every year," the History Channel says.

"The first American Mardi Gras took place on March 3, 1699, when French explorers Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and Sieur de Bienville landed near present-day New Orleans, Louisiana. They held a small celebration and dubbed their landing spot Point du Mardi Gras.

"In the decades that followed, New Orleans and other French settlements began marking the holiday with street parties, masked balls and lavish dinners. When the Spanish took control of New Orleans, however, they abolished these rowdy rituals, and the bans remained in force until Louisiana became a U.S. state in 1812.

"On Mardi Gras in 1827, a group of students donned colorful costumes and danced through the streets of New Orleans, emulating the revelry they’d observed while visiting Paris. Ten years later, the first recorded New Orleans Mardi Gras parade took place, a tradition that continues to this day."