Special to the American Press 

Starting nearly 15 years ago, the annual DownTown Lake Charles Crawfish Festival — a party with a purpose — has been the “Spiciest Event in Southwest Louisiana!” Unfortunately, for 2024, the festival committee has elected to postpone the event.

Citing the economy and the rough local crawfish season due to last year’s drought weather and recent month’s freezing temperatures, festival organizers said this is best.

“It costs a lot to put on a festival and without a good guarantee to make that money back and more, it is just not a good business decision to try to have it,” said Eligha Guillory, Jr., one of the board members of the DownTown Lake Charles Crawfish Festival Association.

The Crawfish Festival is also the signature fundraising event for the Eljay Foundation for Parkinson Awareness. Fundraising chairman Sires Ceasar said, “even though we are not having the Crawfish Festival, we are still doing what we can to bring in funds to support the Parkinson patients and their families. That is what this is really all about.”

The festival always brought the best in Zydeco and Cajun music, along with the best food trucks and over 10,000 pounds of boiled crawfish to downtown Lake Charles in the month of April, which is Parkinson Awareness Month. Previously named as a Top 20 Event by the Southeast Tourism Society, the DownTown Lake Charles Crawfish Festival promotes awareness of crawfish season, the history of the crawfish industry, and how the seafood and crawfish industry has benefited Louisiana over the past 200 years, all while promoting awareness and supporting Parkinson disease education and outreach.

The committee is working on plans now and looking forward to hosting in April 2025, an even bigger and better event than before.