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NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Preparation for Mardi Gras 2023 is underway!

On April 5, 2022, Royal Artists Inc started the year-long process of stripping, designing, and making beautiful floats for the Krewe of Rex to roll through the streets of New Orleans for Carnival.

The President and Owner of Royal Artists Inc, Richard Valadie, said he loves the process of taking down and starting the floats from scratch each year.

“Well one of the great things about Mardi gras is that it is always a renewing cycle and a great reason to make art all year long.”

What attracted him to Mardi Gras is the design phase of the process.

The company builds floats in New Orleans and Mobile Alabama throughout the year. “We have five parades in New Orleans and five parades in mobile”, said Valadie.

Valadie said for the Krewe of Rex, 20 themed floats will be redecorated in its new 2023 theme and 9 floats will stay the same.

Although he could not give us the theme for Rex’s parade for this upcoming year, Valadie mentioned that the original 2021 theme will be rolling for 2023.

So they put the theme that’s suppose to be 2021 on the back burner and we preserved what we have been doing. We already had the floats painted so we had to paint them all out white and they never got to roll, but the same designs will roll for 2023.”

The theme from 2021 wasn’t used for 2022 because it was the 125th anniversary of Rex and they wanted to make it more special added Valadie.

As soon as the floats are torn down and the art pieces are stored away, the artists will white out the floats and start their designs from scratch, just as they do every year.