Since the cancellation of Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest, and Lafayette’s Festivals Acadiens et Créoles due to rising COVID numbers, the Krewe of Red Beans is bringing the festivals to your front porch!
Fest Fest is an initiative that is meant to aid the musicians who have found themselves out of work due to the pandemic and cancellation of music festivals. The idea is to crowdfund yard and porch concerts and replace income lost by the cancellation of these events.
Helping these musicians is simple. Go to www.festfest.org and donate towards the cause. Your donation enters you into a raffle to win a 20-minute porch or backyard concert by one of the participating bands, 80 in total. The concerts will be scheduled for October 8th to 17th, in Orleans Parish. Some participating acts include Big Freedia, Flow Tribe, Sweet Crude, and Little Freddie King Blues Band.
The pandemic has been especially hard on working musicians, who have found themselves at a loss at how to make a living. Music venues were closed for the majority of the pandemic and festivals have been canceled. It’s an uncertain time for some of our city’s most treasured artists. The goal of Fest Fest is to help them recoup some of their lost income and get them back on their feet. According to Krewe of Red Beans organizers, the pay for the porch concerts will be the same as if they were playing a festival gig.
The Krewe will start by hiring more affordable musicians, and getting those funded first, and then working their way up to headliners, which are more expensive.
Anyone who is chosen to host a porch concert must be vaccinated, and guests to the shows will be limited to 10 to 15, maximum. Hosts will be able to choose what genre of music will be performed on their porch, but won’t know which musicians have been chosen to perform until the day of the show. These measures are in place to ensure that the concert doesn’t draw huge crowds.
Founder of Krewe of Red Beans, Devin De Wulf says that he hopes that his organization can raise around $2 million for local musicians.
