Across the street from our office on Frenchmen Street traces of the 2011 French Quarter Festival are being cleaned up (its mass of infrastructure and people replaced by another Hollywood movie shoot) after another successful year for the Fest. Either the French Quarter Festival organizers or the New Orleans City Hall must have made their annual offerings to the weather gods (perhaps a sacred feral chicken?), with a full weekend of perfect early-April weather. This year’s Fest expanded with an extra day on Thursday, but the crowds Saturday and Sunday were still thick with locals and an ever-growing number of tourists discovering the joys of the free festival and the opportunity it provides to get jazz, rock, Cajun, zydeco, funk, reggae, African music and more throughout the Quarter.

All photos were taken by Kim Welsh over the course of the French Quarter Fest weekend.

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