Get Your Tickets to KGNU-CFCZ’s Annual Mardi Gras Dance Benefit 2026

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January 21, 2026

Boulder, CO

What: KGNU-CFCZ’s Mardi Gras Dance Benefit Featuring Koray Broussard & The Zydeco Unit

When: Saturday, January 31, 2026, 6:30 – 11:00 p.m.

Where: Avalon Ballroom, 6185 Arapahoe Road, Boulder, CO 80303

Contact: Dan Willging, 303-870-1156, [email protected]

KGNU Community Radio and Colorado Friends of Cajun-Zydeco Music and Dance (CFCZ) celebrate Mardi Gras with an evening of revelry, music, and dancing, featuring Louisiana Zydeco band Koray Broussard & The Zydeco Unit on Saturday, January 31, 2026. Now in its 13th year, this much-anticipated annual event promises to be the largest Mardi Gras along the Front Range with an authentic Zydeco band.

Tickets are available at kgnu.org or at the door. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. A Zydeco dance lesson follows at 7:00, and Koray Broussard & the Zydeco Unit hits the stage at 8:00. The Avalon Ballroom’s spacious dance floor will be vibrating and shaking with enthusiasm at this annual tradition. There will be a Mardi Gras costume contest with prizes, so be sure to jest in zest in your festive best. So the gaudier and bawdier, the better! KGNU Board Chair Shiquita Yarbrough will emcee the event.

Ever since Koray Broussard arrived on Earth, he was destined for a career in Zydeco, the music played by Louisiana’s French-speaking Creoles. His grandfather Delton Broussard fronted the long-running Lawtell Playboys, his father John led the Zydeco Blazers, and Uncle Jeffrey spearheaded Zydeco Force, an influential band famous for inventing the Nouveau Zydeco style heard today. His large family also developed the sexy, eight-count dance style that departed from traditional two-steps and waltzes. A prodigy, Koray became a professional drummer at age eight with the Trail Blazers. A year later, he played the accordion as well as his father. Being self-taught wasn’t easy. Since instruments were expensive, his father forbade Koray from playing his accordion, but he carefully sneaked in practicing without anyone knowing. That’s also how he learned the electric guitar and bass, sneaking around his father and uncles to play their instruments. After high school, he toured with veterans Roy Carrier, Curley Taylor, and whiz kid Andre Thierry, besides developing his own band. Thierry insisted Koray know every idiom of Zydeco and drilled that into him. These experiences made the multi-instrumentalist extremely versatile to maneuver easily between traditional, Noveau, and the more modern R&B-influenced Zydeco.

Savory Cuisine will provide scrumptious Creole-style food for purchase. Drinks will be available, and complimentary King Cake will be served after the costume contest.

This event benefits KGNU Community Radio and CFCZ. KGNU is an independent community-powered, listener-supported Community Radio Station, broadcasting since 1978. Listen at 88.5 FM in Boulder and Denver, 1390 AM in Denver, 93.7 FM Nederland, 98.7 FM in Fort Collins, 99.1 FM in Central Denver, online at kgnu.org, and from our mobile app for Android or iPhone/iPad. The Colorado Friends of Cajun-Zydeco Music and Dance is a non-profit organization whose mission is to bring Louisiana French culture, music, and dance to the Front Range.

Tickets: