By KEVIN CHIRI

Editor and Publisher

LAPLACE – The famous Andouille Festival for St. John, held each fall, is moving.

Don’t worry though.

It’s not moving far away, and people in the River Region don’t have to worry about not having the Andouille Festival to enjoy this fall.

For that matter, St. John Parish Public Information Officer Buddy Boe said that the move to a new location for the Andouille Festival is going to facilitate a bigger and better event.

Although the final word is not 100 percent, Boe said that the parish administration is virtually certain the fair will, in fact, relocate beginning this year to the grounds around the St. John Community Center on Highway 51.

“Plain and simply, the Andouille Festival has outgrown its present location,” he said.

The Festival has been held on the grounds of the Percy Hebert Building for several years, but has been crowded, to say the least. Additionally, said Boe, it has become a safety hazard since over 10,000 people have been attending, and many are having to run back and forth across Airline Highway to get to their parked cars.

The decision is yet another in the rapid-fire moves by new Parish President Bill Hubbard, who had the Andouille Festival site among the many issues he wanted to address when he took office, barely two months ago.

Residents in this area who have noticed lots of dirt being spread on the ground in front of the Community Center are seeing the beginning work to raise that ground so it will support cars and trucks.

That will be the parking area for the fair, while the actual food and vending booths, as well as the stage and band area, will be in the current Community Center parking lot.

Gravel parking behind the paved area will be the location for the rides to set up, and Boe said that the current walking path and recreation area behind where the fair sits, will be closed off during the fair to make sure it doesn’t get abused.

“We have done a lot of work to make that a beautiful area for people to walk, exercise and play, and we don’t want the large crowd to go into that area and create any problems,” Boe said.

As for the festival, Boe said the enlarged grounds will allow for more food booths, more vendors of various sorts, as well as a wider range music lineup.

“We want to have music the entire time that the fair goes on, from the start to the finish,” he explained. “And we want to get more Cajun and Louisiana music flair involved, to make it seem more like a Louisiana fair.”

Boe also said that a change in the popular baby contest should coincide with the change in location. As was done years ago, the baby contest will most probably switch to being held the day of the festival, and will be held inside the Community Center building so people going to the festival can also enjoy the contest.

“The layout for the new fair will be ideal, since we have this new space,” Boe added. “The bands will be located pretty much in the middle of the fair so everyone can hear them. It’s really all going to make for a much bigger and better fair.”