Experience Louisiana Festival is returning

The Experience Louisiana is returning Oct. 22 and 23 on the LSUE campus with the same touch and feel character that its irst version offered.
Festival organizers Pat Dossman and Dwight Jodon were at the Eunice Kiwanis meeting Thursday to promote the second-year festival.
The core of the festival is its assembly of artists and craftsmen who conduct demonstrations and make themselves available for conversations.
“When we talk about culture everybody thinks Cajun, everybody thinks Creole when you talk about Louisiana, but there are a lot of cultures out there,” Jodon said.
Jodon said the Attakapas Opelousas Prairie Tribe has agreed to come to this year’s festival. They will join the Coushatta Tribe, which was a popular venue at last year’s festival.
“The reason we didn’t call it ‘Experience Acadiana’ or ‘Experience Eunice’ when we started, and we had some people say ‘maybe you ought to call it that’ is we wanted the ability to to branch out. We wanted the ability to invite anybody from the state, any culture in the state to come and showcase themselves,” Jodon said.
The festival earned praise last year for its cleanliness and its safety, he said.
“Parents didn’t feel like they had to keep a grip on their kids’ hands. They kids could play and there was a lot to do and see,” he said.
Activities for children will be ramped up at this year’s festival, he said. The Youth Wetlands Program through the LSU AgCenter is planning to bring baby alligators to the festival and the Lafayette Science Museum plans to have a presence, he said.
Cooking demonstrators will return to the festival after making a major impact at the first festival, Jodon said.
Bands to date include Wayne Toups, Geno Delafose, High Peformance and Steve Riley.
Dossman said the festival recently obtained $3,000 from the St. Landry Parish Tourism Commission for rack cards, up from the $2,000 the festival received last year.
“They were impressed with what happened at the festival and said that we need the money now not later when we are bigger and better,” Dossman said.
One goal for the festival is to become self-sustaining, she said. But until that happens, the festival needs corporate and individual donations, she said.
Dossman said the tourism commission pointed out the parish’s 4 percent hotel tax generated $48,000 in October 2015 compared to $35,000 in October 2014. The increase was attributed largely to the Experience Louisiana Festival, she said.
“We know that we drew tourist traffic to Eunice,” she said.
At the first festival there were tourists in bus-loads from Canada and Texas, she said.
The festival, which is sponsored by the Eunice Rotary Club, generated enough to provide a $4,000 check to the LSUE Scholarship Foundation, she said.
“I feel like Eunice is a gem in the crown of Louisiana. We are a friendly city. We draw people from other states and countries. We have some of the best cooks in the nation. You never meet a stranger here,” she said.
Dossman said Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser has said he will be in Eunice to kick-off the festival.