The Bayou Country Superfest is riding off into the Baton Rouge sunset as festival organizers have announced the annual Memorial Day weekend event will be on hiatus until further notice. President and CEO of Visit Baton Rouge Paul Arrigo says looking back, it was a great event for the city.
“It had a positive impact on our visitation in a time when we truly needed visitation. It is something we were fortunate and glad to have for as many years as we had,” said Arrigo.
The festival had a decade-long run, starting at Tiger Stadium, did two years in the Superdome, then returned to Baton Rouge in 2019 and featured some of the biggest names in country music including Florida Georgia Line, George Strait, Tim McGraw, and others.
Arrigo believes several factors contributed to last year’s modest attendance, including bouncing back from the festival’s two-year run in New Orleans, shrinking the schedule from three days to two, and a late lineup release.
“It came out in February. We missed all the opportunities for people to buy tickets for Christmas. In the previous years that it was in Baton Rouge the announcement was made in November,” said Arrigo.
Arrigo says he’s not sure what the future holds for the festival.
“We’re always looking at trying to bring events of that magnitude to Baton Rouge and hopefully we’ll have something in the near future,” said Arrigo.
At its peak in 2014, 135,000 people attended the festival. Last year drew about 50,000.