Lunar new year or Mardi gras?

Our last two trips have been during the Lunar New year. I’m look at 2019 dates. Do you think Lunar New Year increases the crowds much? What about Mardi Gras? The two dates I’m looking at (when we have a day off of school) Coincide with these two events. I’ll go look at historical crowd levels, but I thoughts I would see everyone’s personal thoughts. Thanks!

We’ve been a couple of times for Lunar New Year. Our first time in 2015 was when it was just a long weekend celebration. In our experience, it only made the Lunar New Year stuff busy (so the Paradise Gardens area- particularly the character meets at the gazebo).

In more recent years they’ve extended it to a 3 week celebration with food booths, expanded entertainment including the Lunar New Year related pre-show for WOC. When we went the 2nd time on Lunar New Year (2017) the first day of our trip was the last day of the Lunar New Year festivities & it was very, very busy in DCA.

It was also Superbowl Sunday and there were tons of people in their team gear (us included) so I learned it was sort of a thing to visit DL on Superbowl Sunday if your team wasn’t playing in the big game. I just looked up the actual crowds for DCA on this day & it was an 8. I’d say it felt even busier than that, but we were also among all the people trying to see the Lunar stuff because it was the last day it would all be available. So I think my initial take on the Lunar New Year stuff being busier is accurate.

This year the last day of the Lunar Festivities was Feb 18 & DCA was a 7 & coincided with Pres Day weekend.

TL;DR Lunar New Year stuff will be busier but overall crowds in DCA will not be much bigger than what they are going to be based on whatever dates Lunar New Year falls on.