New Orleans, Louisiana · Flown by Pelican Sky
Aerial advertising in New Orleans
Put your brand in the sky over greater New Orleans's biggest outdoor crowds: French Quarter Festival, Mardi Gras parades (Uptown route), Sugar Bowl. One brief, one contact, one flight plan built around the events that matter here.
- Metro population
- 1.3M
- Flagship event windows
- 7
- Top modeled impressions
- ~1.05M/ flight
The event calendar
Where the crowds are in New Orleans
These are the windows where a banner over New Orleans works hardest: large outdoor crowds, predictable locations, and flight paths that keep your message over the audience for the whole flight.
Tap an event for venue & crowd
(how?)Sugar BowlGame day · pre-game window · January~530Kimp. / flight
Mardi Gras parades (Uptown route)Parade · Feb to Mar~760Kimp. / flight
French Quarter FestivalFestival · April~1.05Mimp. / flight
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage FestivalFestival · Apr to May~490Kimp. / flight
ESSENCE Festival of CultureFestival · July~290Kimp. / flight
Tulane football home gamesGame day · pre-game window · Sep to Nov~160Kimp. / flight
Saints home gamesGame day · pre-game window · Sep to Jan~470Kimp. / flight
Attendance figures come from published event, venue, and organizer estimates. Impressions are modeled exposures for one standard three-hour flight with about two hours over the event, not measured counts; the full methodology is below. Game-day rows reflect the outdoor pre-game crowd only, since the FAA restricts flight over large stadiums during games.
Why aerial works here
New Orleans was built for this
This is our home airspace. Pelican Sky was founded here, and the aircraft that flies your banner is ours, not a subcontractor's. From January through July the city runs an almost unbroken chain of outdoor mega events: bowl season, a month of parades, back-to-back festival weekends, then ESSENCE. The geography does the rest: one slow orbit can hold the Quarter, the riverfront, and the CBD at once, and on parade days the entire audience is conveniently arranged along a five-mile line we know by heart.
New Orleans hosts roughly 17 million visitors a year, and its signature events happen outdoors in a compact core: the Quarter, the CBD, the parade routes, and the Fair Grounds all sit within a few miles of each other.
New Orleans by the numbers
- Metro population1,270,000
- Flagship event windows7
- Pro & college teams3
- Biggest single-day crowd~250,000
- FulfillmentPelican Sky aircraft
Impressions & media value
The math, out in the open
Every number on this page comes from the same model we use in client proposals. Here it is, worked through for two of New Orleans's biggest flight windows.
Festival · April
French Quarter Festival
- Full event run
- ~1M across 4 days
- Estimated attendance (per day)
- 250,000
- In view during the flight (on-site festival crowd)
- ~145,000
- Exposures per lap
- ~43,500
- Laps in a standard flight
- 24
- Modeled impressions per flight
- ~1.05M
Game day · January
Sugar Bowl
- Estimated attendance (per game)
- 70,000
- In view during the flight (outdoor pre-game crowd)
- ~49,000
- Exposures per lap
- ~22,050
- Laps in a standard flight
- 24
- Modeled impressions per flight
- ~530K
Pre-game window only: the FAA restricts flight near the stadium from one hour before kickoff until one hour after the game.
How we estimate this
Each estimate starts from the event's typical attendance, discounted by a dwell factor (the share of attendees on site during a flight window) and a per-lap visibility rate (the share of that crowd with a practical line of sight to the banner). Multiplied by the laps flown in a standard flight (three hours, with about two hours over the event; transit to and from the staging field is not counted), that yields modeled impressions: total exposures, counted the way out-of-home media counts them, where one person seeing the banner on three laps counts three times. Unique reach never exceeds the crowd in view. These are modeled estimates, not measured counts, and we share the full math with every quote.
What that means for CPM
On event days like these, aerial typically models out below high-traffic billboard rates (roughly $5 to $15 CPM) and well below premium programmatic video ($15 to $30 CPM), while putting the message over a live, outdoor, phones-out crowd instead of a feed. And because the banner returns every lap, nearly everyone in view sees it more than once: the odds of someone on site for a full flight never seeing the banner are effectively zero.
Venues & flight context
The New Orleans flight map
We stage just upriver and work the city in coordination with New Orleans approach, flying around 1,000 feet along the river, the parade routes, and the lakefront depending on where the crowd is. The Superdome carries a game-day flight restriction from one hour before kickoff, so Saints flights work the pre-game build-up, and evening parades are flown during their daylight staging hours. We have flown Jazz Fest, parade routes, and CBD circuits for years; the flight plans on this page are ones we actually fly.
Stadium
Caesars Superdome
73,208 capacity
Arena
Smoothie King Center
16,867 capacity
Fairgrounds
Fair Grounds Race Course (Jazz Fest site)
80,000 capacity
Stadium
Yulman Stadium (Tulane)
30,000 capacity
District
French Quarter
~150,000 on peak days
District
Uptown parade route (St. Charles Ave)
~200,000 on peak days
Home teams
- New Orleans Saints (NFL, Caesars Superdome)
- New Orleans Pelicans (NBA, Smoothie King Center)
- Tulane Green Wave (NCAA (AAC), Yulman Stadium)
Proof from the sky
We fly this playbook every season
Jazz Fest, New Orleans
Stacked orbits directly over the Fair Grounds while attendance peaks. Every lap puts the banner back in front of the same tens of thousands of people, and by the end of the flight virtually everyone on site has seen it.
Parade flyover, Chopin Law Firm
A law firm's banner working a Mardi Gras parade route: high linear crowd density, a captive outdoor audience, and a message no billboard on the route could match for attention.
“We hired Pelican Sky to fly our banner over New Orleans and we could not be happier. If you are considering billboards, consider this!”
Justin Chopin, Owner, Chopin Law Firm
“They did a great job of helping us with impactful targeted advertising for our first year music festival, Boots on the Bayou.”
Craig Pierce, Founder, Boots on the Bayou Music Festival
FAQ
New Orleans flight questions, answered
How much does aerial advertising cost in New Orleans?
New Orleans is our home market, flown with our own aircraft, so pricing is as direct as it gets: per flight, based on flight time and banner type. Letter banners cost less than custom printed aerial billboards. Tell us the event or dates and you get a firm quote back fast, with the impression math attached.
Can you fly during Mardi Gras parades?
Yes. Daytime parades along the Uptown route are one of the best aerial audiences of the year: hundreds of thousands of people arranged along a predictable line for hours. Evening parades are flown during their daylight staging window. We plan the route and timing around the parade schedule; it is a flight we have made many times.
What about Saints games at the Superdome?
The dome has a roof, so the in-bowl crowd is not visible from the air, and the FAA restricts flight near the stadium from one hour before kickoff. Saints flights work the two hours before the restriction begins, when the CBD, Poydras Street, and the Quarter are packed with fans.
Who flies the banner in New Orleans?
We do. Pelican Sky's own aircraft and pilots, based minutes from the city. No broker layer, no handoff: the people quoting the flight are the people flying it.
Which New Orleans events should I book first?
Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest are the two strongest windows: huge, fully outdoor crowds with long dwell times. Mardi Gras daytime parades and Saints pre-game are close behind. The calendar above shows the modeled impressions for each.
How far ahead should I book festival season?
Early. Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest weekends are the most requested flights of our year, and parade season slots go quickly once krewe schedules publish. A month or more ahead is safe for festival season; ordinary weekends can often be flown within days.
Put it in the New Orleans sky
Tell us the event or the dates, and you'll get operator availability and pricing back fast, with the impression math attached.
Prefer to talk it through? Call (504) 226-7478 or email contact@pelsky.com.