Bands & Concerts Are Back In The Big Easy – With These COVID-19 Restrictions
A month after the shutdown for Mardi Gras, the music returns to New Orleans bars.
According to the Big Easy’s Phase three opening plan, effective March 12, “live entertainment may be performed at bars, concert halls, music halls, live [performance] venues, and event venues following the capacity limits based on the business type.
Bars are limited to 75 people and concert and music halls at 75% capacity or 25o people.
That’s not all – masks are required, people must be seated and there is no dancing. Phrase three states that “patrons must refrain from cheering or singing along, especially while not wearing masks. Patrons are prohibited from dancing.”
So much for Cajuns going crazy to the bands at the Maple Leaf. And visitors, fueled by crazy cocktails and big beers, rising up and doing the drunk dance at Bourbon Street bars.
New Orleans currently has a test positivity rate of 1.5%, down from a high of 10.4% at the end of December.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who not only canceled the Mardi Gras parades but ordered the bars to close for Mardi Gras weekend and Fat Tuesday, said, “we were absolutely the hot spot, but did what was necessary. It is important for us to embrace the positive news, for us to be proud of that, for us to continue to showcase that on a national scale.”
New Orleans, of course, is all about the music. It’s the city’s cultural heartbeat and musicians and bands bring that sound to the bars with their sounds spilling out onto the streets.
Locals love it and tourists enjoy it at the many Bourbon Street bars that have live music.
The bands are also glad to be back.
The good times are not fully back in the Big Easy, but they are starting to roll again.
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