Free & Open to the Public!

Saturday, April 6, 2019 11AM-7PM

Sunday, April 7, 2019 12PM-6PM

The Ebb & Flow Festival is an annual conglomerate of visual art, film, music festivals, interactive media, and conferences that take place beginning in mid-March and culminate in a 2-day Arts Festival each April.  It began in 2017, as a reimagining of Fest for All, and has continued to grow in both scope and size every year. The free, two-day festival and multi-state participatory events leading up to that weekend draw travelers from across the globe located on the Baton Rouge River Front will include public art installations, performances, interactive displays, maker spaces, and experiential learning opportunities for visitors of all ages, with access to local museums and historic places on the festival site.

The timing of the festival event, namely the first weekend of April, serves as an anchor event for Louisiana’s festival season, with the Baton Rouge Blues Festival, Earth Day, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Festival Internationale, among others, which follow.  The capital city as location for the festival identifies its leadership of this unique cultural practice throughout the state.  

Ebb & Flow 2019’s expansion includes a partnership with Third Street Songwriters Festival, a music industry conference in which over 147 singers and musicians travel from 9 states and professionals from performance rights organizations SESAC, BMI, and ASCAP, convene to secure publishing deals with local songwriters.  Also included is a trade fair led by the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, a juried Art Exhibition with Public Vote Awards, a Children’s Corner in partnership with Junior League, and the Creativity Summit, a national conference for high school students, and activities of The Water Institute of the Gulf.

Other community partners include: Baton Rouge Area Foundation, Baton Rouge Area Chamber, The Water Institute of the Gulf, the Louisiana Office of Culture and Tourism, The Louisiana Division of the Arts, Visit Baton Rouge, Downtown Development District, Louisiana Seafood Board, LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio, LSU College of Art and Design, Southern University, United Aerial, Louisiana Arts & Science Museum, East Baton Rouge Parish Library, West Baton Rouge Parish Library, BREC, Old State Capitol, Junior League of Baton Rouge, Raising Canes River Center, Baton Rouge Gallery, Knock Knock Children’s Museum, among others.

Inspired by Baton Rouge’s identity as the capital of Louisiana and its unique location on the on the Mississippi River, the Ebb & Flow Festival celebrates artists, expands cultural understanding, encourages critical discourse, transforms urban space, promotes the collective economic and ecological connection to water, and all things that ebb and flow.  

The Ebb & Flow Festival will educate and foster dialogue to increase understanding of natural and human aspects of water systems, ecology, and restoration in terms that are approachable for the public, including placemaking, storytelling, public art and interactive design. This arts and cultural approach is combined with the celebration of the diverse industry brought by the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River in balance with incentives for sustainable practices among festival vendors and partners.

The delta region and coastline of Louisiana is disproportionately vulnerable to land loss and flooding due to climate change. In addition to economic and ecological impacts, erosion and weather events threaten the loss of Louisiana’s cultural assets. These cultural assets may also provide a resource in the solution to this problem by humanizing the issue and providing a means to help the public understand and connect to water. According to a 2018 report by the US Water Alliance, “Artistic experiences often evoke a sensory and emotional response and have potential to help people see, hear, feel and even taste a unique water challenge, source, or process that would have otherwise been intangible.” Ebb & Flow Festival, with its thematic focus on water and location on the Mississippi River, is a setting to make these connections for people in Southeast Louisiana and on a national and international level.