Dirty Linen Night

At best 2 stars. Among the aftermath of the Red Dress Run and its later day drunks is what is supposed to be an art affair to compliment (spoof) the prior week’s White Linen Night. Part of the problem is the limited time that the few actual galleries are open (from 6 – 8 pm), although a few stayed open past 8:00. It’s more of a street party with beverage booths, not-​too-​good street performers, and typical Quarter shops. If you really want to visit the galleries I recommend doing so some afternoon or early evening. If you are just out to be in the crowd then you might enjoy this — but in my opinion New Orleans has much better to offer.

The French Quarter’s response to the White Linen Night… which means all the art galleries stay open late and many have live music. Royal is shut down for the evening and there are food trucks and liquor tents set up on the street.
This year it was pretty rainy which actually made the event less hot and more entertaining… or maybe that was because Red Dress Run was earlier in the day and some folks through a white linen shirt over their red dresses and others were still drunk from running around all day.
We started out late so didn’t get to go to all the galleries on Vicky’s list… this was another evening in her farewell NOLA tour. But I really enjoyed the spots we did hit.
I do think that despite the rain this event was larger than it had been the last time I attended… which was a few years ago.

If White Linen is snooty and pretentious, then I would call Dirty Linen it’s more fun cousin. The cousin you want to hang out with because she knows all the cool people and all of the cool places to go and she’ll sneak you beer before you hit 21.
Dirty Linen is so much better than White Linen. Yes, it’s still hot, but it’s not nearly as «uppity». Most of the crowd seems a bit younger than White Linen and the whole atmosphere is more laid back and relaxed. The galleries on Royal are fantastic and everyone just goes and has a good time and seems to be in a good mood.

This is an «ok» time but is more shopping than festival focused. They have started imposing all sorts of rules and have started selling wine instead of giving it away free like they had always done in the past. Too much political interference is really causing a drag on this event!

Having never been to either Dirty Linen Night or White Linen Night before, I had nohing to compare this event to. However, with nothing to do on a Saturday night, we decided to get up off the sofa and venture to the French Quarter to see if the Dirty Linen Night hype was all that people were saying.
I’ve seen the pictures from White Linen Night and this does not even come close. However, Royal Street galleries and shops in the 200 – 900 blocks stayed open late to welcome the Dirty Linen Night crowd. Many of the shopes and galleries were offering discounted merchandise in commemoration of the event and most were offering some sort of appetizers and wine. Antoine’s restaurant had a small stand where they were selling their famed Baked Alaska dessert for only $ 5.00 and it was worth every penny.
All in all, it was a pretty good evening, considering we weren’t doing anything in the first place. There were NOPD stationed in every single block and I did not see one single incident warranting police intervention. The only downside is the extreme August NOLA heat, and there’s nothing any of us can do about that.