Baton Rouge has lost Bayou Country Superfest to New Orleans and along with it the sizable economic impact the festival generated for the Capital City each year.
The 2017 Bayou Country Superfest will be held May 26-28 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome during Memorial Day weekend, the festival’s organizers announced today. The festival will kick off with a free outdoor concert on Friday, May 26, in Champions Square and will be followed by two nights of performances in the Superdome. Lineup and ticket information will be announced Dec. 1.
“We are delighted to have Bayou Country Superfest remain in Louisiana this coming year and hope to host this amazing concert series for years to come,” Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser says in a statement. “We are thankful that partners across the state came together to support this event because it brings so much exciting talent and thousands of people from all over to enjoy the best of Louisiana.”
For seven years, Bayou Country Superfest was held in Baton Rouge at Tiger Stadium, bringing thousands of people to the Capital City on an otherwise slow Memorial Day weekend. But in August, LSU announced that the megafestival would have to find a new home because renovations are scheduled to take place at the stadium during the next two years.
It’s unclear at this point whether the festival would return to Baton Rouge once the Tiger Stadium renovations are complete.
The loss to the Capital City is anticipated to be felt culturally and economically. As previously report, Bayou Country Superfest’s economic impact for Baton Rouge is believed to have been in the tens of millions of dollars, though exact numbers were not available before this afternoon’s publication. Festival Productions, which hosts Superfest, did not return a request for comment.
Paul Arrigo, president and CEO of Visit Baton Rouge, says he spoke to Bayou Country Superfest producer and director Quint Davis on Monday about the move, which was anticipated.
“We felt that once Tiger Stadium became unavailable due to the renovations that keeping it in Baton Rouge for the next couple of years would be quite a challenge,” Arrigo says.
Arrigo also says he and Davis had discussed that if Superfest were to stay in Louisiana, it needed to be held at the Superdome. He says the facility works because it has enough space to handle a stadium-type show expected to bring in tens of thousands of people.
The Capital Region usually benefited from the waves of tourists traveling to Tiger Stadium to see musical acts such as Taylor Swift and Kenny Chesney perform. Hotels saw three times the amount of revenue during Memorial Day weekend 2016 than they did before the festival started, Arrigo says.
With the absence of the megafestival, there’s reason to be concerned about Memorial Day weekend in Baton Rouge next year, Arrigo says, adding that it’s “traditionally a slow weekend in the city.”
“You really need a reason to travel to Baton Rouge,” he says.
There are plans next year to capitalize on Baton Rouge’s 200th birthday in an effort to drive tourists to the city, Arrigo says.
“We’re hoping to promote travel to Baton Rouge from other areas of the state. We’ve got some plans that we’re going to put in place in 2017,” he says.
—Alexandria Burris
