Experience Louisiana Festival to return in 2016

The first Experience Louisiana Festival Festival was a completely ambitious event on the LSUE campus that was 18 months in the making and a pleasant surprise to festival-goers.
Dwight Jodon, an organizer and spokesman for the festival, estimated about 5,000 people attended the inaugural festival, which included Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne cutting the ribbon to open the event.
The festival is intended as a revial of the Louisiana Folklife Festival that was held in Eunice during the 1980s and 1990s.
The festival was held Oct. 17 and 18 and organized into Folklife Village, Artist’s Village, Walk Through Louisiana, Film Village, Cooking Demonstrations, Antique Car Show, Musicians Village, Ag Village, Craft Village and Food Village.
Jodon estimated that over two days 10,000 people might attended. Since the festival is free an accurate count is difficult.
But even with an estimate half of his pre-festival projection, Jodon said he was pleased.
Festival participants took a chance in participating, he said.
Jodon said of festival-goers, “I think they were just really pleasantly surprised at the scope. That’s what we heard over and over. ‘We had no idea it was going to be like this. We had no idea it was going to be this big.’”