Finally! We made it to Essence Festival ladies and gentleman. Since Girl’s Trip it feels like every year I see pictures and videos all over my timeline each July. After several years of “we should go next year”, we finally put together the group chat. We honestly did not have any idea of what to expect, things to do, or how to prepare. I searched for “How to plan a trip to Essence?” and came up with nothing. Therefore, I hope this will be helpful for when you start to plan your trip over the next 6 months (because if you’re like me you’ll really need that much time).
WHEN TO START PLANNING
If you got a chance to look at my London/Paris Cost Breakdown, then you know I tend to plan for big events a good bit in advance. I started the group chat in maybe late November to poll interest and then actually started planning in January. I would suggest that you start at least finding your lodging 4-6 months in advance & start brainstorming your events and activities a month or two beforehand as well.
*New Orleans is set to enforce new restrictions on AirBNB (& other short term rentals) in the city. These restrictions could limit the amount of short term rentals to one per square block. It’s unclear how this will impact tourism, but its something to keep in mind as the number of AirBNBs may be lower or more expensive than expected.*
LODGING
Like I said, we chose to stay in an AirBNB. The plan was for seven of us to all stay together. When thinking about the cost of multiple rooms to accommodate seven people, and the fact that we would have to stay separately, we opted for the BNB.
What we didn’t know ahead of time is that Essence Festival has a block of rooms at multiple hotels listed on their Festival webpage. There are several business and celebrity pop-ups that happen over the course of the weekend. Some of these are hosted at local hotels. Staying at a hotel downtown is also beneficial for those who want to easily pop-in throughout the day to cool down. Which leads me to the next topic…..
WHAT TO PACK
If you think it will be hot… it will be HOTTER! I never thought I would be itching to get back to the South Carolina heat. Therefore, dress for the weather. I brought jeans… all jeans. Suddenly all the 50+ year olds in their linen outfits didn’t look so crazy.
You know how people joke about suddenly thinking you’ll need 3 outfits a day when you go on vacation? That’s not out of the question. I would advise at least 2 outfits a day so you’re not stuck in your own sweat.
Also, we know black people like a color coordinated event. There are several events organized by independent groups throughout the weekend. I mean there were all white, all black, even all pink parties. If any of those are interesting to you pack accordingly.
Other important things worth mentioning: tennis shoes for a lot of walking, a clear bag if you plan on attending any concerts, a personal fan because heat, BRAIDS, & Black Girl Sunscreen.
HOW TO PLAN YOUR WEEKEND
This is probably the most crucial part of the planning process. There are soooooo many things to do and you don’t want to get paralyzed with indecision. The most helpful thing we found was joining a Facebook group with thousands of new and experienced festival goers.
Everyone in the group, like at the Festival, is inviting and happy to help. They will give you an idea of what events have been successful in the past and what events you will need to for sure buy tickets for in advance. It will be very difficult to find out about everything on the spot, so I suggest you at least come up with a rough idea of what you want to do.
Additionally, because of the Festival many of the restaurants will have extended wait times. We spent up to an hour waiting outside to be seated (not everywhere accepts reservations). Keep this in mind when planning back to back events.
WHAT WE WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY
Plan for the convention center earlier in the day and weekend. BeautyCon is especially busy because many big companies like Mielle, Vaseline, Shea Moisture, NYX, etc. give away free products. Some of the lines for these can get pretty lengthy (over an hour). You don’t want to spend your entire day waiting in line for products you could very well buy at Target.
We would also map out speaker events at the convention center. Besides food and giveaways there are notable celebrities and public figures that host talks at the convention center. I plan on being more intentional about catching some of these next time.
Spend more time at pop-up and paid events. Those parties that I talked about, we missed out on them because we simply did not know about them.
The concerts. They are great and have many performers that could be headliners on their own. BUT they are LONG! This year performers started at 7:00 and headliners did not go on stage until 12:30-1:00 AM. We bought a 3-day ticket to the concerts and quickly realized that both Friday & Saturday nights were gone because we were at the Superdome each night. We opted to skip Sunday’s lineup. I would definitely plan on going to one show and leave the other nights open for NOLA nightlife.
Lastly, I would spend more time exploring the city. Essence Festival weekend is so big that it can take away from the fact that you’re in New Orleans.
Overall I definitely plan to attend Essence Festival again & I highly recommend it for all the black girls and women out there.
If you want to get in on the fun next year, bookmark this page. If you’re a seasoned veteran is there anything I missed?