Mardi Gras crowds typically aren't bad... unless the concert is for a popular band. Last night the concert area was filled hours before the show and the parade route was packed. For some dumb reason during the concert Uni was trying to get people who wanted to exit routed through the narrow Mardi Gras food booth area instead of the wider New York streets (which were totally blocked by crowd control barriers). No idea how that worked for them... I turned around I went all the way back to Harry Potter to loop back to Hollywood Blvd. Everything else was gridlock. And at some point they stopped anyone from entering the Studios. Not sure when it started but all the gates were still locked at 9:30pm.
It also took an hour to get out of the parking and to the freeway. Among all the other traffic snarls, the main intersection (Uni Blvd and Hollywood Way) was madness as people were stuck in the middle of it due to not being able to complete their left turns. Then more people got stuck as they were determined to cut through this line of bumper to bumper cars.
