Festival International Cuts Heritage Stage As Lack Of Sponsors Spell Uncertainty

Festival International will be down at least one stage in 2017 as they are the latest to feel the one-two punch of the local oil economy and recent historic flooding.

Approximately one third of Festival's $1.1M operating budget comes from corporate sponsorships and at the time of this post only a "handful" of them have confirmed for 2017. Executive Director Scott Feehan says everyone pulling out is citing the same reason—budget cuts.

For three months after Festival, we had phone call after phone call losing corporate sponsors’ support

Ironically, Festival was founded 30 years ago in an effort to spiritually and economically revive the city during an oil crunch in the 1980s. Times are definitely tough in Acadiana with an estimated 7,000 jobs being cut due to the slow economy.

So how can we help our festival?

It's actually very easy to support festival. From buying a pin to becoming a rain angel, you can help to keep Festival free, but according to Feehan only around 300 out of the 300,000 people that attend festival actually support it monetarily.

If everybody supports at whatever level we are able to, we can make it happen

Would you ever pay to attend Festival International? Feehan says they don't want to charge any type of admission, but that it's up to the community to make sure that doesn't happen.

Read more about Festival's concerns and the adjustments being made here.