The annual Artvoice Mardi Gras festival turns 12 years old on Tuesday, February 20, and we’re celebrating it the way we always do: with a massive party that encompasses much of downtown Buffalo, featuring a parade and a bead-strewn lupercalia to which thousands of revelers are invited every year. It is one of the biggest philanthropic Mardi Gras events in the country—and, despite also being one of the coldest, grows in size each and every year. Our parade begins promptly at 5pm at the Albright-Knox, from which dozens of floats snake their way down Elmwood to Allentown, then down Pearl to the Chippewa strip, then back up to Allentown to Kleinhans Music Hall. (See the map for the precise parade route.) Mardi Gras beads are passed out by friendly volunteers at all 48 bars and nightclubs that take part in our festival. A mere $5 donation—every dollar of which goes to the Center for Hospice and Palliative Care—buys you a bracelet that entitles you to admission and a string of beads at every joint you enter. The Mardi Gras Central station (Starbucks parking lot at Chippewa and Delaware) features live radio remotes, giveaways, admission bracelets, beads, masks, t-shirts and an assortment of glowing accoutrement.

The party itself is epic: live music, dancing, street performers, costumed revelers, drink specials, a traveling contingent of drag queens and who knows what else? It’s a mystery, a Pandora’s box whose contents grow weirder every year. For $5 to a great cause, you just can’t lose for winning.

As always, Artvoice thanks a heavenly host of sponsors, club owners, volunteers, float-builders, performers, marchers and assorted angels who make our Fat Tuesday event possible. Our sponsors: Southern Comfort, Heineken, 103.3 the Edge, Oldies 104 and 97 Rock. We are also indebted to the Buffalo Police Department, Buffalo City Hall, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Cozumel, Buffalo Big Print, Zdadz Limo Service, Eden Carriage Company, Ilya’s Belly Dancers, the indefatigable Chevon Davis and Friends—among many, many others. Laissez le bon temps rouler!

Your $5 donation does far more than buy you a mess of beads and access to live music and entertainment at 48 clubs and bars. As they have for the past 10 years, proceeds from the Artvoice Mardi Gras benefit Buffalo’s Center for Hospice and Palliative Care, which serves individuals with serious illness, as well as their families and caregivers. Hospice treats the person, not the disease, addressing the social, emotional and spiritual needs of the patient as well as the physical condition. Founded in 1978, Hospice Buffalo was one of the first Hospice programs in the United States.

For more information about the Center for Hospice and Palliative Care, please call (716) 686-1900 or visit www.hospicebuffalo.org.