International Rice Festival In Downtown Crowley “A Tradition Of Family And Friends And Food”

The 76th International Rice Festival is underway in downtown Crowley in Acadia Parish. It's one of the oldest and largest agricultural festivals.

Festival co-chairman Jay Suire says they expect the event will attract between 200 and 300-thousand visitors. He says festival goers can expect "fantastic entertainment, two sound stages, delicious food all the way up the midway, carnival, arts and crafts, lots of history, (and) lots of celebration of the harvest."

Suire says the festival features well-known musical performers like Wayne Toups, Sammy Kershaw and the Bag of Donuts. There's a parade on Saturday and plenty of carnival rides. He says admission is free:

We want to keep it a free festival. And that has helped us to grow in crowd size and in turn that means we get to bring in better entertainment and so on because people want to keep it a free festival.

Suire says dozens of volunteers help organize the festival, which takes place every year to celebrate the rice crop harvest:

It's really a tradition of family and friends and food. Rice has been such a big part of the economy. This little town has really fed the world for a very long time.

The festival lasts through 6 p.m. Sunday evening. For a list of everything that's going on, click HERE.