Bayou Country Superfest is today and Sunday, May 29-30, in Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE, La. — Bayou Country Superfest organizers expect at least 80,000 people from across the United States and Europe to file into LSU Tiger Stadium Memorial Day weekend.
Superfest producer-director Quint Davis said the number of ticket holders far exceeds his initial projections for the star-studded music festival, which takes place Saturday and Sunday, May 29-30.

“It’s unbelievable and counterintuitive,” said Davis, chief executive officer of Festival Productions Inc.-New Orleans, which stages the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and the Essence Musical Festival.

“We are proving a small number of people right and a much larger number of people wrong,” Davis said.

No one, however, is complaining since robust ticket sales means a bigger boost to the Baton Rouge area’s economy.

A study done on the concert headlined by Taylor Swift and Kenny Chesney showed a projected economic impact of $25 million, Davis said. That amount should be bigger since the study was based on an attendance of 30,000, organizers said.

“We think the festival is going to have an impact beyond East Baton Rouge Parish and the immediate nine-parish area,” said Paul Arrigo, president and chief executive officer of the Baton Rouge Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We think it’s going to affect all of southeast Louisiana.”

Businesses across the area already have received an economic boost because of the upcoming music festival, Arrigo said.

Hotels and motels are booked, flights to and from Baton Rouge are just about full, and restaurant owners are scheduling extra staff, he said.

“It’s a big thing,” Arrigo said, especially for Memorial Day weekend in the capital city, which typically doesn’t draw a lot of visitors.

Garrett Kruithof, president of the Baton Rouge Hospitality Management Association and general manager of Best Western Richmond Suites on Hilton Avenue, said that in previous years only 5 percent to 10 percent of the 141 rooms at his establishment have been booked Memorial Day weekend.

This year, Richmond Suites rooms are booked solid Saturday, May 29, and is almost full Sunday, May 30, Kruithof said. The increase, he said, is due to Superfest.

Davis, who worked with AEG Live and The Messina Group to bring in Superfests
big country music names, said he intends on making the $6 million musical festival an annual event.
“I wouldn’t want to go to the trouble and I wouldn’t want to make the investment if it was just for a year,’ he said. “This is just the birth of a great new event.”

Superfest, Arrigo said, will also be a catalyst for other events in Baton Rouge, especially at Tiger Stadium, which has never hosted a concert event until the Memorial Day weekend event.
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