The weekend of June 13 and 14 featured the three French Market Festivals which had been so much fun for Big Man and me last year: the creole Tomato Festival, the Louisiana Seafood Festival, and the Cajun and Zydeco Festival. It was also a very busy weekend for us, with our hosting a gathering at our home for new church members on that Sunday afternoon, and thus having to clean the first floor of the house prior to the little reception (we don't clean up upstairs unless we think folks will have a reason to go up there!), so the only day we could go was Saturday.
Last year, one of the festivals (or part of the three festivals, I'm not sure sure how they organized it) was held on the grounds of the Old Mint on Esplanade, and there was lots of shade and grass to help cope with the heat. This year, it was not only hotter and not as cloudy (it rained a bit last year, which we thought was a blessing), but for whatever crazy reason, the Mint was closed off for renovations -- which of course were NOT going on on the weekend! -- and the entire complex of three festivals was now jammed up in the French Market and Dutch Alley. No trees. No grass. Just acres of concrete and hordes of sweaty people crammed into a smaller space.
I will say that the music was good at both of the stages we saw (weren't there *three* stages last year??), but it was SO HOT and the stages were set up in such a way that to be in front of the stage was to have the sun beat unmercifully on your head, so that you had to be more than a little crazy to hang there. (A parishioner of mine reported that a friend of hers had been dancing at the festival, and she commented, "She must have lost her mind.") It was so hot you couldn't think, your brain just boiled. And, unlike at Jazz Fest, there was no "mist tent" to duck into to try to cool off; unlike Phoenix, Arizona, no restaurant or shop blew cold air out into the crowd. It was just miserable hot, crazy-making hot, brain-boiling hot.
Three things added to our disappointment: the charbroiled oysters weren't as good as last year (different vendor), there were no comfortable tables and chairs set up in the shade as last year (no room, I guess, with the new set-up), and WE COULD NOT FIND THE HEIRLOOM TOMATO GUY!! We had brought a canvas bag just for the purpose of taking those babies safe home with us, and we were determined, but it was a fruitless (and tomato-less) quest. We walked and walked, sweating up and down the length of the festival area *three times* and asked every person connected to the festival we could find. (One answered, "I don't even know what an heirloom tomato IS." How bad is that??) Since that had been our absolute favorite thing at last year's festival, despite the good music and the good food we ate, and the wonderfully refrsing hand-made limeade, and the carton of (regular) Creole tomatoes we brought home, the festival was a bust to us.
Next year, go back to the Old Mint! Or move the three festivals to Waldenburg Park! (Or the air-conditioned Morial Convention Center!) No grass and no trees and no place to sit makes for one hot and uncomfortable festival.
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