Busch Garden Tampa Bay<\/a> for Mardi Gras celebrations
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Weekends through March 1
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Four parades a day, jazz band and bead balcony fun
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New Orleans insipred dining<\/p>\nJust ask Loren Bracewell, longtime head of costuming at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore is more, and more is never enough,\u201d said Bracewell, standing in front of a fluffy mound of feathers, beading and sequins.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s his handmade Mardi Gras masks and hats.<\/p>\n
Everyone in their weekend Mardi Gras celebrations is wearing a Bracewell design.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s his visions on paper that bloom into walking creations \u2014 a traditional court jester, a dancing bird, a krewe queen.<\/p>\n
And he doesn\u2019t waste \u2014 he repurposes.<\/p>\n
Applique from a sleeve one year might be part of a necklace the next year.<\/p>\n
And unlike a traditional stage show, you can\u2019t hide imperfections in a parade \u2014 they\u2019ll do four a day on weekends through March 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe audience is all around them,\u201d Bracewell said. \u201cEverything has to look perfect out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bracewell credited the Costume Shop crew with bringing his ideas to life, some with tenures as long as Bracewell. That marks three decades of Christmas elves, Halloween zombies and Mardi Gras revelers.<\/p>\n
The color schemes and d\u00e9cor continue into the park \u2014 along with cuisine choices like beignets and boudin balls.<\/p>\n
It’s a way to keep the party going. Mardi Gras celebrations ended in South Louisiana on Tuesday, but the party doesn\u2019t stop at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0All that glitters is not gold. What You Need To Know On The Town at Busch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7147,7150,7152,28,7151,115,4094,7149,139,135,137,136,7148,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-160219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-chefs-kitchen","9":"tag-app-florida-on-a-tankful","10":"tag-chefs-kitchen","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-on-a-tankful","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-on-the-town","15":"tag-on-the-town-app","16":"tag-orlando","17":"tag-tampa","18":"tag-tampa-headlines","19":"tag-tampa-news","20":"tag-virginia-johnson","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}