Southern Decadence celebrated at a unique church ‘revival’

Southern Decadence returned to New Orleans over Labor Day Weekend. The five-day festival has been dubbed “Gay Mardi Gras”.

It’s the city’s second biggest party weekend, after the aforementioned Mardi Gras, and attracts around 200,000 revelers from around the US and beyond.

The city is packed with street parties, clubbing events, drag shows, and other excuses to don an eye-catching costume and flirt with a stranger.

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And it’s not all about wild partying. One of the most recent festival highlights was a unique event in a deconsecrated church, courtesy of the cruising website, Sniffies.

‘Cruising Revival’

The Sniffies ‘Cruising Revival’ took place in the Church at Hotel Peter & Paul on Thursday, September 3, 2026. It featured an exhibition of photographs depicting the history of Southern Decadence, drawn chiefly from the Historic New Orleans Collection.

The first Southern Decadence was a small party in a hippy-ish communal house in 1972. It quickly evolved into a bar crawl that grew into a parade.

This “Revival” featured a DJ and a service led by the queer Mexican artist, Leo Herrera.

The evening began with a group of singers performing a slowed-down, a capella rendition of Sylvester’s beloved disco anthem, “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real”.

Herrera took the stage to offer a sermon-style speech, reflecting on the history of Southern Decadence, and also acknowledging how the event has banded the community together through difficult times, including AIDS and other challenges faced by the community.

Southern Decadence began the year before the infamous Upstairs Lounge Fire, an attack on a New Orleans gay bar that resulted in the deaths of 32 people.

Southern Decadence has persisted and grown — despite the threat of hurricanes in the region at this time of year.

“You can feel it. There’s a charge in the air”

Herrera noted that this year’s hurricane season extended beyond Louisiana. Metaphorically, the wider LGBTQ community finds itself in the “eye of a storm” due to the current political climate.

“You can feel it. There’s a charge in the air. And a lot of us are in that cone of uncertainty, not knowing when that hurricane is going to touch down on us,” he said.

Partying and pleasure are, of course, one way to resist such storms. Another is stepping up for one’s community, said Herrera.

“What can I offer my neighbor, and what do I need from them? What knowledge, sweat, privileges and access can I share? It’s not about being a good person; it’s about asking yourself, ‘What am I good for?’.”

Herrera went on to welcome to stage some local voices: Social worker and HIV advocate Michael Hickerson (a Southern Decadence Grand Marshal from 1983!), New Orleans historian and tour guide Quinn Bishop, and French Quarter restaurateur Farrow Stephenson.

Each reflected on what makes Decadence “Pride’s sluttier sibling” and how the city initially shunned it. That is until the economic benefits prompted a change of heart. New Orleans officials are now firmly supportive, even banning street preachers from turning up to hassle attendees.

Southern Decadence has changed over the decades. It’s bigger, flashier, more mainstream and less underground. But it remains a queerly defiant festival, and one that encourages attendees to look out for and take care of each other.

Long may it continue to bring mayhem and mischief to the streets of New Orleans each September!

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