NEW ORLEANS – It has not been easy going for Bayou Boogaloo’s Music Festival this year. First they opted to add an admission charge, and then changed that about a day before the event, instead asking for donations to keep the festival alive.
Then, shortly after it opened Friday, the festival was hit by a violent storm that sent tents, stages, port-o-lets, food and wares flying. At times it looked like the festival would need to call it quits, but instead, the organizers shut things down Friday and then worked all night and into the morning to get the event back up and running.
“We had lots of tents and infrastructure blown over and destroyed,” said Jared Zeller, one of the organizers. “Some of our vendors were devastated… we worked into the wee hours of the morning to put this back together.”
The result? Well, at least for Saturday, the visuals said success. If you didn’t know better, you wouldn’t be able to tell that a strong storm devastated the area just hours before.
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Sunny skies and calm winds allowed large crowds to enjoy the scenery.
Whether the crowds on Saturday and Sunday can make up for the total loss of revenue on Friday remained to be seen.
“We need the public to come out and support it and show they want it to stay alive,” said Zeller.