Each year the New Orleans Carnival season starts on January 6, called Twelfth Night. The Twelfth Night Revelers, New Orleans' second-oldest Krewe, hold a masked ball each year to mark the beginning of New Orleans' Carnival season. Many of Carnival's oldest societies, such as the Independent Strikers' Society, hold masked balls but no longer parade in public.
Mardi Gras season continues through Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday.