VN reporter sampled Bourbon Street hours before attack

BOURBON BLOCKADE: New Orleans police cars block an entrance to Bourbon Street after a terrorist attack early New Year’s Day. (Getty Images)

Editor’s Note: VenuesNow Senior Editor Don Muret was in New Orleans at the time of the Bourbon Street terrorist attack and filed this first-person account, which was updated after the 2025 Allstate Sugar Bowl.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — The terrorist attack in New Orleans in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2025 hit close to home for this reporter who spent three days in town to attend a Billy Strings concert, eat Cajun food and take in the city’s magical vibe.

Of course, we didn’t expect to wake up Wednesday morning in a bed-and-breakfast across the street from historic City Park to find out that a man driving a pickup truck barreled into a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring 30 others.

My girlfriend and I were on Bourbon Street earlier on New Year’s Eve. We strolled the entertainment district, ate lunch at Pat O’Brien’s and drank their signature Hurricanes. We bought souvenirs from Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, received original prose from a “poet on the spot” and had our fortune told from an insightful tarot card reader in Jackson Square.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and the French Quarter was busy with students and families wearing the colors of Georgia and Notre Dame, the two schools that were set to play a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game at Caesars Superdome on New Year’s Day. Intermittent cries of “Go Dawgs!” from Georgia fans echoed through the district.

The Sugar Bowl was postponed to Thursday, one day (Jan. 2) after the attack, with the stadium put on lockdown as city and law enforcement officials worked with venue management firm ASM Global to regroup and ensure the safety of all participants.

Shortly before 1 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, we got off the street car at Canal Street as it intersects with Bourbon Street. It was at that same spot, about 14 hours later, where the terrorist drove around parked police cars to access Bourbon Street and run over pedestrians before he was shot to death by officers.

We walked past the construction crane where the perpetrator’s truck crashed into before he got out of the vehicle and shot at officers, who returned fire and killed him.

After lunch, we encountered Jackson Square, which was full of artists displaying their wares and brass band buskers blowing their horns and banging on drums next to The Cabildo, a 225-year-old building, part of the Louisiana State Museum network.

In the early afternoon, we noticed three types of law enforcement agencies patrolling the district — city police, state troopers and a set of military-style green uniformed officers monitoring the scene. It felt safe to us, even though we had no plans to hang out on Bourbon Street later that night.

Our path took us away from Jackson Square, toward the riverfront on Decatur Street, which was part of the Sugar Bowl Parade. It was about 3 p.m., shortly after the parade ended and city workers were in the process of removing large barriers used to temporarily close streets to form the route.

Those barriers were unlike the steel and concrete bollards that New Orleans is in the process of replacing with upgraded structures as part of a Bourbon Street project. There were no bollards in place at Canal and Bourbon at the time of the attack, with police cars in place as a temporary solution until the new barriers were installed, which was to be completed in time for Super Bowl LIX, set for Feb. 9 at the Superdome, according to The Associated Press.

Officers found multiple weapons and improvised explosive devices inside the terrorist’s truck and other IEDs in the Bourbon Street district.

I reached out to Dan Donovan, founder and managing partner of Stratoscope, a security consulting firm, for his take on the New Orleans attack and how it could affect security protocol for the Sugar Bowl and Super Bowl.

Without having any intel from local, state or federal agencies, Donovan said the venue team most likely conducted a thorough sweep with bomb-sniffing dogs and other IED detective measures of the Superdome, exterior perimeter and all pedestrian walkways leading to the stadium. For Sugar Bowl, post-attack, they also probably reviewed the Super Bowl perimeter plans to see where they could extend it for the college football game.

“Then, it becomes a resource challenge, working with law enforcement, as well as their security staffing team to understand what resources they can count on,” Donovan said. “When you move the date of the game on short notice, you are working with all of your staffing companies to see what impact that has on staff, where there may be additional staff and where they might be looking at shortages. The challenge is getting fans to and from the stadium safely, working with law enforcement to reduce the vehicle and pedestrian conflicts, because New Orleans is a great walking city that adds additional risk.”

Fan zones and pregame areas need strengthened security measures because they beome soft targets which require additional resources, he said.

Doug Thornton, executive vice president of ASM Global and who’s run the Superdome since 1997, has a wealth of experience with increased security measures. In 2002, the Superdome held the first Super Bowl after 9/11, which introduced the concept of a secure perimeter extending 300 feet from the stadium. Thornton was also part of the Super Bowl facility operations team during the power outage at the dome during the 2013 event, and dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when the stadium served as emergency shelter for 10,000 people.

We visited with Thornton last Sunday at the New Orleans Saints’ final home game of the 2024 season against the Las Vegas Raiders, which drew a strong crowd of about 56,000, despite both teams no longer having a shot to make the NFL playoffs. For the Sugar Bowl, he expected some “softness” with crowd attendance, due to the expanded 12-team CFP format, with the Georgia-Notre Dame winner advancing to potentially play two more games, including the championship on Jan. 20.

It’s unclear how the New Year’s Day attack may have further affected Sugar Bowl ticket holders that had to extend their stays in New Orleans to attend the game. Official attendance was 57,267.

After the New Year’s Day terrorist attack, the Superdome and the city are in good hands with Thornton — who will take over the reins of ASM Global after former president and CEO Ron Bension exited following the merger with Legends — as well as Superdome general manager Evan Holmes and the rest of the stadium’s management group.

We spent the rest of New Year’s Eve dining at a seafood boil restaurant and hanging out for a few hours on Frenchman Street, which has become a bustling entertainment district on its own, apart from Bourbon Street. We were back at our B&B by 10:45 p.m. Central Time to watch the NYE festivities on television.

I’m glad we’re safe and feel terrible for the families of the victims. We’re thinking of those whose lives were lost, including former Princeton football player Martin “Tiger” Bech, from Lafayette, Louisiana, and Matthew Tenedorio, who worked for ASM Global in the video production department at Caesars Superdome and Smoothie King Center.