NOLA ChristmasFest 2026: Tickets, Hours and How to Plan the Day

NOLA ChristmasFest is the one Christmas event in New Orleans that does not care what the weather is doing. It happens indoors, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, and it runs for eleven days across the holidays. For families who have already walked the Celebration in the Oaks Driving Tour and eaten their way through a Reveillon menu, it is the third piece of a New Orleans Christmas.

Here is what ChristmasFest actually is, what it costs, and how to plan a day around it.

What NOLA ChristmasFest is

NOLA ChristmasFest is a walk-through indoor holiday festival built around a real ice-skating rink. The 2026 run is the thirteenth annual edition. The attractions are indoor ice skating, ice slides, snow tubing, holiday rides and visits with Santa, all spread across the convention center floor.

Two features shape most families' plans: Skating with Santa, a session where Santa takes the ice, and the Polar Pub, an adults-facing bar area set inside the festival so parents can sit down while the kids keep going. Both are inside the same ticketed floor.

Because it is indoors and climate-controlled, it is also the most reliable part of a New Orleans Christmas in bad weather. The Celebration in the Oaks Driving Tour runs rain or shine, but a cold, wet night is a much better fit for a skating rink than for a walking tour through City Park.

NOLA ChristmasFest 2026 dates and hours

The 2026 run is Wednesday, December 23, 2026 through Saturday, January 2, 2027, per nolachristmasfest.com.

The festival uses a two-session day on most dates:

• Weekdays: 11:00 AM to 3:30 PM, then 4:30 PM to 9:00 PM
• Saturdays and Sundays: the same two-session block, 11:00 AM to 3:30 PM and 4:30 PM to 9:00 PM

Three dates break that pattern and are worth planning around:

The pattern to notice is that the two biggest holiday nights close early. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve both run a single morning-to-mid-afternoon session and then shut down, because the convention center staff and most of the city are elsewhere. If ChristmasFest is the anchor of your day, build the day around it rather than tacking it on at 7:00 PM.

Sunday, December 27 is the Saints game-themed day, with the Polar Pub hosting a 3:00 PM kick-off watch. That is the busiest Sunday of the run and the one worth booking in advance.

NOLA ChristmasFest 2026 tickets

Ticket prices are $25 plus fees on weekdays and $30 plus fees on weekends, per nolachristmasfest.com. Tickets are required for ages 2 and up, and the ticket is date- and time-specific — there are no on-site sales, so buy before you go.

Two practical notes that are easy to miss:

Tickets are sold by session, not by day. Buying a ticket and turning up at 7:00 PM on a Saturday does not get you into that session. Pick the session when you buy.

The December 24 and December 31 single sessions sell out first, because they are the shortest windows of the run. If either is your only available date, buy early.

Getting to the Convention Center

ChristmasFest sits at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in the Warehouse District, a 10-minute drive from the French Quarter. Parking is $23 flat per day through the Park Mobile app at Lot F, 900 Convention Center Boulevard; the lot entrance is at 400 Calliope Street, per nolachristmasfest.com/plan-your-visit. ADA parking is arranged by emailing the convention center directly.

The parking lot is the part of the trip people underestimate. Late December stacks ChristmasFest against the Sugar Bowl and the New Year's Eve riverfront crowds, and the same lots serve all three. On December 27, December 31 and January 1, expect to queue for a space.

For families, the arithmetic usually favors not driving. A group arriving by chauffeured vehicle is dropped at the entrance, and the driver is waiting at the same door when the session ends rather than circling a garage. That matters most on the two-session days, where the 3:30 PM session lets out into the 4:30 PM session's arrivals and the whole block becomes one long line of cars.

If you are combining ChristmasFest with the rest of the season, the Christmas in New Orleans transportation page covers the Celebration in the Oaks Driving Tour, Reveillon dinner pickups and Christmas Eve Mass in the same trip. Families regularly run ChristmasFest in the afternoon and the Oaks Driving Tour after dark, which works well because the two are on opposite sides of the city and the Driving Tour runs until 10:00 PM on Fridays and Saturdays.

Pairing ChristmasFest with the rest of the season

ChristmasFest is the indoor, daytime, kid-facing half of a New Orleans Christmas. The other half is outdoors and after dark. A workable two-day shape:

Day one, daytime: ChristmasFest for a midday session, then lunch in the Warehouse District or the French Quarter. Day one, evening: the Celebration in the Oaks Driving Tour at City Park, which opens Friday, November 27, 2026 and runs through Friday, January 1, 2027.

Day two, evening: a Reveillon dinner — the Creole prix-fixe program that runs December 1 through December 24 at restaurants across the French Quarter and Garden District. Then the hotel lobby hopping at the Roosevelt, the Ritz-Carlton and the Windsor Court, which costs nothing and is genuinely one of the best free things to do in the city at Christmas.

If your dates reach New Year's, the New Orleans New Year's Eve page covers the riverfront fireworks and the Sugar Bowl parade, both of which land inside ChristmasFest's window.

Tips that make the day easier

Go on a weekday if you can. Weekday tickets are cheaper, the floor is less crowded, and the two-session structure means a morning session is genuinely quiet until about noon.

Dress in layers you can carry. The convention center floor is climate-controlled and the skating rink keeps it cool, but you will be walking between the rink, the pub and the vendor areas for two to three hours. A coat you have to hold all afternoon is a nuisance.

Arrive at the start of your session, not the middle. The sessions are fixed-length windows. Arriving forty minutes in means losing a fifth of your time to the entry queue, which on a weekend can be long.

Book the ride for the session window, not the clock. Because sessions end all at once, the pickup queue outside is at its worst in the ten minutes after a session closes. A driver already staged nearby turns a thirty-minute wait into a two-minute one.

Check the Santa schedule before you promise anyone a photo. Skating with Santa runs on specific sessions rather than every session, and it is the single most common thing families miss.

Getting to ChristmasFest: the four options

Drive and park. Parking is $23 flat per day at Lot F, 900 Convention Center Boulevard, paid through the Park Mobile app, with the lot entrance at 400 Calliope Street, per nolachristmasfest.com/plan-your-visit. Per vehicle rather than per person, so a full car parks for one fee. It is also the option most exposed to the December calendar: the same lots serve the Sugar Bowl and the New Year's Eve riverfront crowds.

Rideshare. Getting dropped at the Convention Center is easy. Getting picked up is the problem. Both sessions of a two-session day empty at once, so the curb at 3:30 PM and at 9:00 PM becomes the longest line of the trip, and surge pricing lands exactly on it.

Chauffeured vehicle. The advantage is not the ride in, it is the ride out. A driver already staged nearby when the session ends takes the queue out of the day entirely, and the same vehicle can carry you straight from the Convention Center to the Driving Tour at City Park without a second pickup.

Hotel shuttle. Workable if your hotel runs one and ChristmasFest sits on its route, but most do not, and the ones that do keep a fixed schedule that will not bend to a session window. Check before you count on it.

What to know before you go

Buy before you arrive. Tickets are date- and time-specific, and there are no on-site sales. The December 24 and December 31 single sessions are the shortest windows of the run and are the first to sell out.

Tickets are required for ages 2 and up.

ADA parking is arranged by emailing the convention center's parking office directly, per nolachristmasfest.com/plan-your-visit.

The floor is climate-controlled, but the rink is cold. Layers you can shed and carry beat a heavy coat you are stuck holding for three hours.

Arrive at the start of the session you bought. The sessions are fixed-length windows. Forty minutes in the entry queue on a weekend is a fifth of your time gone.

ChristmasFest versus the rest of the season

If you only have one free day in New Orleans in late December, the choice is worth thinking about, because the season's headline events do not all run on the same nights.

NOLA ChristmasFest is the indoor, daytime, weather-proof option. It runs eleven days, it does not care about rain, and it is the one event built squarely for children. If your group has young kids or the forecast is bad, this is the pick.

The Celebration in the Oaks is the outdoor, after-dark, iconic option. It runs the longest — Friday, November 27, 2026 through Friday, January 1, 2027 — but it closes on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, and its hours run into the evening rather than the afternoon.

The two do not overlap in time of day, which is why so many families run them back to back: ChristmasFest for a midday session, dinner, then the Driving Tour at City Park after dark. They sit on opposite sides of the city, so the transfer between them is a real leg of the trip rather than a walk.

Reveillon dinners are the evening option you book first, because the reservations and the vehicles for the same window go early. The program runs December 1 through December 24.

Christmas Eve Mass at St. Louis Cathedral is the fixed point of Christmas Eve itself, at 4:00 PM and 6:00 PM, per stlouiscathedral.org. Note that ChristmasFest runs a shortened morning session that day and the Oaks is closed altogether.

Who NOLA ChristmasFest suits

ChristmasFest rewards a specific kind of group: families with children young enough to want the ice and the slides, anyone who wants a holiday event that does not depend on the weather, and travellers building a New Orleans Christmas around daytime activity rather than evening dining.

It is a weaker fit for a group whose Christmas is really about restaurants and bars, or for adults travelling without children who want the season's atmosphere more than its activities. The Celebration in the Oaks, the Reveillon dinners and the French Quarter on foot cover that far better, and none of them require a ticket bought weeks ahead.

The cleanest way to decide is by time of day. NOLA ChristmasFest occupies a daytime block. Almost everything else on the New Orleans Christmas calendar — the Driving Tour, the Reveillon dinners, the lobby hopping, the riverfront fireworks — happens after dark. A trip that wants both should plan the days first and the venues second, because the venues do not conflict so much as the hours do.

One further point for larger groups: ChristmasFest is one of the few holiday events in the city where the whole party can arrive and leave in a single vehicle without splitting up. The Convention Center has a single entrance and a single drop-off point, which makes a group of ten or twelve considerably easier to move here than in the French Quarter, where a dinner reservation and a Cathedral Mass can put your party on opposite sides of a closed street.

A three-day shape that works

Day one. A midday ChristmasFest session, lunch in the Warehouse District or the French Quarter, then the Celebration in the Oaks Driving Tour at City Park after dark.

Day two. A Reveillon dinner in the French Quarter or the Garden District, then hotel lobby hopping at the Roosevelt, the Ritz-Carlton and the Windsor Court. The lobbies cost nothing and are genuinely worth the stop.

Day three. Christmas Eve Mass if your dates reach December 24, or the riverfront fireworks and the Sugar Bowl parade if they reach New Year's. The Sugar Bowl 2027 CFP semifinal is Friday, January 15, 2027.

The constraint that shapes all of this is that the last week of December collides across every category at once — the ChristmasFest run, the Driving Tour's final weekends, the Sugar Bowl build-up and the New Year's Eve crowds. Restaurants, hotels and vehicles all tighten in the same ten days.

Common mistakes families make

Booking the ride for a clock time instead of a session. Sessions end in a wave, so the pickup window matters more than the exact minute.

Assuming the evening session is available on Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve. Both days run a single shortened session ending in the mid-afternoon.

Promising a Santa photo without checking the schedule. Skating with Santa runs on specific sessions rather than every session, and it is the single most common thing families miss.

Planning the Oaks and ChristmasFest for the same evening. They are on opposite sides of the city. Both are better with a gap between them.

Leaving the ticket purchase to the day. There are no on-site sales.

Frequently asked questions

When is NOLA ChristmasFest in 2026? Wednesday, December 23, 2026 through Saturday, January 2, 2027, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, per nolachristmasfest.com. It is the thirteenth annual edition.

How much are NOLA ChristmasFest tickets? $25 plus fees on weekdays and $30 plus fees on Saturdays and Sundays, per nolachristmasfest.com. Tickets are required for ages 2 and up, are date- and time-specific, and are not sold on site.

What are the ChristmasFest hours? Most dates run two sessions, 11:00 AM to 3:30 PM and 4:30 PM to 9:00 PM, including Saturdays and Sundays. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve run the 11:00 AM to 3:30 PM session only. Christmas Day and New Year's Day run 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

Is NOLA ChristmasFest indoors? Yes — it is held inside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, which makes it the most weather-proof event of the New Orleans Christmas season.

Where do you park for NOLA ChristmasFest? Lot F at 900 Convention Center Boulevard, entered at 400 Calliope Street, for a $23 flat daily fee through the Park Mobile app, per nolachristmasfest.com/plan-your-visit. ADA parking is arranged by emailing the convention center's parking office.

What else is there to do for Christmas in New Orleans? The season's anchors are the Celebration in the Oaks Driving Tour at City Park, the Reveillon dinner program, hotel lobby hopping at the Roosevelt, the Ritz-Carlton and the Windsor Court, and Christmas Eve Mass at St. Louis Cathedral. The Christmas in New Orleans page covers the full 2026 calendar and the seasonal transportation.

Planning the trip

NOLA ChristmasFest is a fixed-calendar event: the dates above do not move, and the 2026 run falls inside the same window as the Oaks Driving Tour, the Reveillon program and the New Year's Eve fireworks. That collision is why the last week of December books out in New Orleans across every category — restaurants, hotels and vehicles.

If NOLA ChristmasFest is part of your trip, the practical move is to lock the session date first, then build the rest of the itinerary around it. The transportation side of that plan is on the Christmas in New Orleans page, which covers seasonal hours, all-in pricing and the events that overlap.