About New Orleans
Join us in beautiful New Orleans for the UCEA 93rd Annual Conference! The 2008 UCEA Conference: “Inspiration, Creativity, Innovation — and All That Jazz” promises to embody the creativity, innovation and the spirit of renewal that is blossoming anew in our host city, New Orleans. Now is the time to fall in love with New Orleans all over again.
Now is the time to fall in love with New Orleans all over again.
 The most celebrated and historic core of the city – including the Faubourg Marigny, French Quarter, Central Business District, Warehouse and Arts District, Magazine Street, Garden District, Audubon Park and Zoo and St. Charles Avenue – not only remains intact, both physically and spiritually, but is thriving. In February 2006, the 150th anniversary of Mardi Gras was a coming out party for the city, which has since enjoyed equally historic festivals, sporting and cultural events, conventions and meetings. It’s no surprise that the New York Times has named New Orleans the “Comeback of the Year” and both Orbitz and Travel + Leisure have chosen it as one of their top destinations for 2007.
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Your visit right now ensures you the unique, cultural travel experience only New Orleans can deliver. Even more, it means you are taking part in something important, something historic: celebrating the Rebirth of New Orleans.
Music and All That Jazz
 New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz and the place some of the world’s most popular musicians – from Louis Armstrong to Lenny Kravitz – have called home. A melting pot of musical inspirations and innovations, New Orleans has embraced music as an indelible part of its history, an important facet of its identity, and one of the most colorful threads in its cultural tapestry.
From street performers to intimate clubs, jazz funerals to festivals, and symphonies to headlining rock concerts, music continues to permeate – and enrich – every day of life in New Orleans.
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Walk the streets of New Orleans today, and you’ll still hear it: the hum, the beat, the rhythm. It’s everywhere. It pours out of nightclubs and concert halls, rises from churches and theatres, fills the streets, echoes across festival grounds and permeates the city's neighborhoods. Jazzy and jubilant, soulful and spiritual, rocking and rolling – New Orleans music tells the story of the city and its people to anyone who will hear it, and in the most eloquent ways imaginable. Come and listen.
Culture & Art
The first operas in America were performed in New Orleans in the 1790s, when the Spanish-style townhouses of the French Quarter and the exquisite Greek Revival mansions of the Garden District were built. At that time visitors to New Orleans enjoyed the luxuries, and perhaps the decadences, of "the city that care forgot." Residents reveled in cultural and recreational opportunities far beyond what most cities of New Orleans' size could offer. New Orleans was the cultural capital of the South.
 Today, New Orleans is undergoing a creative renaissance and reclaiming that title. The city boasts world-class museums, including Smithsonian affiliates The National World War II Museum and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Artist studios and galleries, performing arts groups, and the venues that host them speckle the map. All around the city, historic neighborhoods are being revitalized.
Tropical in climate, lush in setting, exotic in architecture and sensual in atmosphere, New Orleans is still a worldly, yet richly creative environment like no other. |
Restaurants
No place loves its food quite as sincerely – or as indulgently – as New Orleans. Some people eat to live, but New Orleanians live to eat. As a result, the city offers one of the most incredible – and incredibly diverse – concentrations of exceptional dining and unforgettable cuisine in the world.
 More than 1,500 restaurants are open in the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area. This includes most of the city's culinary treasures and many of the favorite neighborhood hotspots. Chefs are celebrities here, their dishes considered works of art and their restaurants nothing short of revered. And for every culinary passion you can imagine, New Orleans has an inspired menu to match. Here, you’ll find famed classic French, Italian and Spanish restaurants that remain unceasingly faithful to their roots.
You’ll also find some of the industry’s brightest and most innovative rising stars, serving their own unique versions of what is collectively known as New Orleans Fusion. And of course, you’ll be tempted at every turn by New Orleans’ signature Cajun and Creole dishes.
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Golf, Sports & Outdoors
Whether you are a fan of football, basketball, baseball, golf, running, yachting, fishing, horse racing or virtually any another competitive sport you can imagine, New Orleans is one of the nation’s top places to compete… and enjoy watching competitions.
New Orleans has hosted more major sporting events across a huge spectrum of categories than any other destination: a record nine Super Bowls, some of the greatest NCAA finals and championships, the annual Allstate Sugar Bowl Classic and more. It is no wonder that New Orleans has been known as the Road Trip Capital of the U.S.
 New Orleans is fast becoming a golf mecca in the southern United States. An explosion of course development and renovation has made New Orleans a true urban resort. One of the oldest PGA Tour stops is located here, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
New Orleans’ unique and hauntingly beautiful landscape also offers an incredible array of outdoor activities, including the absolutely finest fresh and salt water fishing anywhere. Beyond world-class fishing and conservationist hunting, New Orleans also offers exceptional ecotours, swamp tours, bicycling, running and more in the area. The list is long and varied, and every option takes advantage of the lush, water- and wildlife-filled environs unique to the area. |
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