The city of New Orleans is preparing for the Mardi Gras, with the city and its tourism industry partnering with the King of Carnival himself to promote the event. When Carnival begins each year on “Twelfth Night,” the city will deliver a proclamation, created by the Rex organization’s School of Design, to citizens around the world inviting them to attend Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
“It is only fitting that the city of New Orleans join with Rex, King of Carnival to invite visitors to our city,” said Mark Romig, president and CEO of New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, NOTMC. “The Rex 2013 Royal Invitation renews a carnival tradition more than a century old.”
The Rex organization began creating its Royal Invitation in 1872 when a group of young New Orleans leaders decided to issue invitations and a proclamation, inviting all to come to the Crescent City to join in its Mardi Gras celebration. In the days before mass media, broadcast, and tourism industries, the art posters and brochures were distributed in railroad stations, plastered on train cars, posted in centers of commerce, and placed in public buildings around the nation in major US cities.
The 2013 Royal Invitation incorporates artwork from 1886, inviting visitors to “gather, from far and near, to join in the many celebrations and processions which will shortly unfold under the joyful Carnival banner.”
Each year, both the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation and the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau will issue an electronic version of the Invitation across the country to media, as well as over 60,000 travel trade professionals and tour operators.
