New Orleans says, "Hold my mint julep, darlin'.
With no dance floor and strict, new coronavirus guidelines, attendees at the 2020 Naughty N’awlins swingers convention swayed in place at their tables and flirted behind face masks from a distance.
After being tested for coronavirus and agreeing to wear masks, about 250 people checked into a New Orleans hotel for the swingers convention on Nov. 14 to reconnect a community separated by the pandemic.
A little more than two weeks later, 41 attendees have tested positive for the virus, according to the event’s organizer, in an outbreak that led local officials to call the convention a “superspreader event.”
A spokesman for New Orleans Democratic Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the event was a “very stark example of what can happen when you don’t obey the social distance guidelines.”
NOLA.com first reported the outbreak on Tuesday after event organizer Bob Hannaford recently published a blog post detailing the safety failures that led to the outbreak.
“I wouldn’t do it again if I knew then what I know now,” Hannaford said in the post. “It weighs on me and it will continue to weigh on me until everyone is 100% better.”
The city did not require a permit for the annual swingers convention, which was a little more than a tenth of its usual size this year because of the pandemic. The event’s organizers said they met with city officials before the convention to discuss safety measures to avoid spreading the virus among attendees.
Hannaford said in his Friday post that attendees had to either test negative for coronavirus or prove that they had antibodies for the virus. Event organizers assumed that people with coronavirus antibodies were “not contagious,” Hannaford said. Everyone else was required to have a negative coronavirus test just before the event.
Organizers also asked attendees to keep detailed diaries of everyone they had contact with for more than 10 minutes at the convention, regardless of whether that contact involved sex, Hannaford said. Groups socializing in the hotel were limited to nine or fewer individuals and people were encouraged to wear masks unless they were eating or drinking.
Despite the restrictions, Hannaford said he noticed “a lot more eye contact and positive acknowledgment of short flirts and teases.” He said many attendees thanked him and his staff for putting on the event.
“All in all, the event seemed like a big success,” Hannaford said in his post. “We pulled off a lifestyle event with the strictest protocols and we were able to create an event that we certainly would not advertise as ‘safe,’ but it was the safest possible version we could plan.”
