Festival has the world’s only Mardi Gras in October

Chances are pretty good, if not astronomical, that the Experience Louisiana Festival offers the only Cajun-style Mardi Gras in October in the world.
Try searching for it on Google: “Cajun Mardi Gras October.”
At 2 p.m. Saturday the Eunice Mardi Gras Association will stage a mini-run on the LSUE campus.
Pat Frey, the association’s captaine, said there will be about 10 horses and up to 50 of the association’s members involved in the Saturday afternoon run.
“It is like a normal Mardi Gras,” he said. “We will go down and meet the people and mix with the crowd and then we are going to have a chicken throw.”
The run will start by the LSUE chancellor’s residence and end by the ball park near the Continuing Education Building, which is ground-zero for the festival.
“We are going into the pavilion area in the back and that’s where it is going to end,” Frey said. “That’s where we are going to have the chicken throwing.”
Frey said the mini run will last about 30 minutes, “but your are going to get the idea of what the Mardi Gras does.”
A normal Mardi Gras run — Courir de Mardi Gras — is often an all-day affair that threads miles into the countryside.
But the festival’s event will be Mardi Gras 101.
“We’ll have music and they will all be in costumes. The Mardi Gras is going to work the crowd like they do on the Tuesday run,” Frey said.
The association has enlisted Aaron Smith to offer a chicken to the run, he said.
Smith has been a friend of the Mardi Gras for years, Frey said. “He was always there. They call him the mayor of Pa-Ta-Sa.”
The association has staged similar mini Mardi Gras events at the former Folklife Festival in Eunice and at the Folklife Festival in Natchitoches, he said.
“After the run there is going to be a display inside the building and a discussion of the Mardi Gras and history of the Mardi Gras,” Frey said.
Eunice historian Georgie Manual is to join the discussion, he said.
“They’ll get a little taste of it,” Frey said of visitors. “You can’t know what it is like until you come and run it at Mardi Gras time, but they’ll get a little experience at its purpose.”