Giant lantern mermaids, a 24-foot harlequin clown, and a parading gar fish are converging on downtown New Orleans this week as LUNA Fête returns for its 12th edition, running Nov. 13-15 from 5 to 10 p.m. nightly. The free light and art festival, themed The Puppetry Parade this year, brings projection mapping, puppeteer-driven sculptures, and a multichannel silent disco to a stretch of the Warehouse District.
The festival is presented by Arts New Orleans, the organization formerly known as the Arts Council of New Orleans, which describes LUNA Fête as the nation's longest-running large-scale projection mapping festival since its 2014 launch. This marks the event's return after Arts New Orleans postponed the planned 2025 edition, with the organization saying the move from November 2025 to November 2026 followed shifts in federal and local funding support. As Gambit reported, the festival features five artists or groups presenting puppets or large moving sculptures in Lafayette Square, with three mobile puppet or sculpture works parading each night.
Lantern Mermaids Honor Cancer Alley
Among the centerpiece installations is Troubled Waters, a collaboration between Samille Ganges, who creates work as PlantainFutures, and Pandora Gastelum, who founded Mudlark Public Theatre and the New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival, per Gambit's reporting. The piece features three giant mermaid lanterns built with lightweight plastic skin that responds to heat and reflects light, representing mythical guardians of Louisiana's gulf, rivers and bayous.
The installation includes a grotto resembling whale bones hung with lanterns and was created to remember and honor people lost or affected by Cancer Alley and environmental degradation, according to Gambit. Gastelum said the mermaids are keepers of memories and that the work seeks to address a critical issue through beauty and light. Part of the installation will parade during the festival, and the artists plan to lead a workshop on making lantern puppets; afterward, the artwork will be installed at the Mid-City branch of the New Orleans Public Library.
A 24-Foot Clown and Other Creatures
Also making its New Orleans debut is Zozobot, a giant harlequin clown sculpture built by Walker Babington and his team at Sabatom Studios in 2024. The piece stands 24 feet tall while seated and, according to Babington's estimate, would reach 50 feet tall standing upright; it has a steel frame covered in reclaimed wood and sheet metal with harlequin stencils, a fiberglass face illuminated from within, and shoe tips fashioned from large propane tanks, Gambit reported. Visitors can sit in its hand and look through a massive kaleidoscope powered by light and video, though the sculpture does not move while on display. It was displayed at Hermitage Museum & Gardens in Norfolk, Virginia, for much of the preceding year and may be surrounded by costumed members of the Sabatom team at LUNA Fête.
Babington has described Burning Man, which he first attended in 2008, as the Super Bowl of big, weird art, and he has said Zozobot is an allegory for artificial intelligence, per the same Gambit account. He and other artist parents also created Bed Zeppelin, a Victorian-looking dirigible tethered to a mattress, which appeared at an expo at Arthur Roger Gallery on Julia Street during White Linen Night.
Jaime Bird, a longtime member of Aquarium Gallery, is creating a 12-foot gar fish sculpture that will be paraded, reflecting her ongoing work on water environments and ancient creatures. Monsters of the Underground, an art collective and Bywater shop and art space, will parade giant swamp creatures that require a team of puppeteers. And Lumo, a 10-foot glowing swamp protector made of fabric and soft sculpture, will reveal more about his nature during parades and in the square, according to Gambit. Milagros will create an interactive space that festival attendees can enter.
Silent Disco, Food and the Nightly Route
Piazza d'Italia will host a DJ and silent disco activation by Dohm Collective, which brings a multichannel silent disco and light show to the plaza, with DJs changing every hour and night. Admission to Piazza d'Italia costs $15, with children 12 and under entering free; a separate Gallier Hall VIP experience includes premier projection viewing, an open bar, small bites and priority restroom access, according to Arts New Orleans. Most of the rest of the festival, including an arts market, a wellness area, two clusters of food vendors, and projection mapping videos on Gallier Hall and other buildings, remains free and open to the public, with a suggested $10 donation accepted on site.
Festival organizers describe the route differently depending on the source: Arts New Orleans says the event spans Gallier Hall to Piazza d'Italia, while LUNA Fête's own website describes it as running from Lafayette Square to Piazza d'Italia. Gambit's reporting describes mobile works traveling around Lafayette Square and down Lafayette Street to Piazza d'Italia and back each night. An optional RSVP through LUNA Fête helps organizers plan but does not include admission to ticketed Piazza d'Italia programming or the Gallier Hall VIP experience.
A Festival Rebuilding After a Costly Gap Year
The 2026 return follows a rocky stretch for the festival. Arts New Orleans president and CEO Joycelyn Reynolds told NOLA.com that producing the planned 2025 festival would have cost approximately $500,000, and the organization cited the loss of an $80,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant, which had been announced in an official letter in 2024 and later rescinded, along with lower-than-expected corporate sponsorship, as reasons the 2025 edition was scrapped. NOLA.com reported that organizers ultimately decided to postpone the next LUNA Fête until November 2026.
Despite that setback, LUNA Fête's organizers point to the festival's track record of drawing crowds: Arts New Orleans says the event has drawn 40,000 visitors over four days to downtown New Orleans, and a separate 2026 project notice from the organization says this year's presentation is expected to reach audiences of more than 40,000 attendees. NOLA.com similarly reported that the 2024 edition drew approximately 40,000 spectators. Whatever the exact footprint turns out to be on the ground this week, organizers are framing the festival's return as a significant comeback for downtown New Orleans after a year off the calendar.
