Get your masks, costumes and Mardi Gras spirit ready, the good times are rolling back to Downtown Phoenix.
The headquarters of the Third Annual Mardi Gras festivities will be at Patriot’s Park (CityScape) on Feb. 9, 2013 from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. and this FREE and family-friendly event will feature a festival, parade, pub crawl and the largest gathering of maskers in the Valley of the Sun.
“Mardi Gras keeps getting bigger every year,” said Sara Anderson with title sponsor Downtown Phoenix Partnership. “This year we’ve invited the community to party with us and I expect to see 5,000 revelers out on the 9th.”
The Festival will include a beer garden, New Orleans-style food/costume/ vendors and live entertainment featuring Dry River Yacht Club, Bad Cactus Brass Band and Flamenco por la Vida plus thousands of costumed partiers.
This year’s Mardi Gras Parade will start in the center of the Festival on Central Avenue and continue through the streets of Downtown starting at 4 p.m. Keeping with the community theme, the parade will feature floats and performances from neighborhood organizations, local marching bands, giant puppets, animal rescue organizations and more. All entrants will be costumed and family appropriate.
Returning this year is the Mardi Crawl pub crawl featuring multiple Downtown establishments. This year the crawl is FREE if you travel by foot, however there are a limited number of $15 trolley tickets available to join a Mardi Crawl Krewe. Krewe members will receive a Krewe Kit, dedicated trolley transportation and their very own Krewe’s Director leading them throughout the crawl.
For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit:

downtownphoenix.com/mardigras