Louisiana Cattle Festival returning this year

Fans of the Louisiana Cattle Festival can once again mark their calendars for the first weekend in October.
Cattle Festival President Francis Plaisance announced that the festival will return in 2021, during the first weekend in October. This comes after organizers decided to cancel last year’s festival because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, Gov. John Bel Edwards moved Louisiana into Phase III, which allows for fairs and festivals to operate at 50% capacity. Plaisance said the Cattle Festival Board discussed and jumped at the opportunity to set a date.
“It’s going to be Oct. 1 and Oct. 2,” Plaisance said happily. “We want to get it out there so people can make plans.”
As for plans for how the festival will go, Plaisance said that remains in the works. For now, it’s simply a matter of making the festival happen in some way, shape or form.
“The events are to be determined,” Plaisance said. “We just feel like we want to allow the public to enjoy the festival.”
Plaisance said members of the Cattle Festival board would meet to iron out further details of this year’s festival.
“We are going to meet soon,” Plaisance said. “We are going to see how many events we are going to put in.
“We do want to bring it back.”
Bringing the festival back in any given year, even on the heels of a successful festival, presents plenty of work and some challenges.
“Not having it last year does make things tough,” Plaisance said. “We still have a lot of work to do.”
Last September, the community helped ease some of the burden of the festival not happening last year by supporting a fundraiser effort to “Save the Cattle Festival.”
“That helped us tremendously to be able to get to this point,” Plaisance said.
At this point last year, no one knew the incredible effect the pandemic would have, an effect that led to the cancelation of the festival. It would have been the 72nd Annual Louisiana Cattle Festival. Plaisance said he is satisfied to leave 72nd festival in the history books for having not been held.
“I think we will just keep things in order,” Plaisance said, “and this year will be the 73rd Annual Louisiana Cattle Festival.”
Whatever the label, the festival has a date, and that answers a question many have asked of Plaisance.
“People kept asking me,” Plaisance said of whether the festival would go on. “Everyone I have talked to is super excited that the festival is going to take place.
“That’s a good thing.”