The Muevelo salsa band performs on the Ochsner Baptist stage at Freret Street Festival. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Despite dire warnings of rain or worse overnight, the clouds parted late Saturday morning over the Freret Street Festival and allowed thousands of people to leave their umbrellas behind for food, music and art filling the commercial corridor.
Ronald Alvarez of Saritas brings fresh pampusas from the kitchen during Freret Street Festival. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Courtney “Ceaux” Buckley (left) presents his latest painting, “India,” in a booth outside the Axiom Art Gallery during Freret Street Festival. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Ancora sells fresh-baked loaves of sourdough bread during the Freret Street Festival. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
The Nairobi Youth dance on the Dat Dog stage during Freret Street Festival. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
The team at Midway Pizza serves deep-dish pizza by the slice during Freret Street Festival. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Michot Melody Makers perform on the Alder Hotel stage at Freret Street Festival. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Andrew Amacker manually counts the crowd during Freret Festival. By 1 p.m., he had counted nearly 2,500 people. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
and where exactly do these “thousands” park ? walk? sit to eat their treats? and where are the “facilities”……. ??
We actually strive to have a very family friendly and walkable fest.
We provide tables and chairs at every intersection for people to be able to sit down and rest.
The ‘facilities’ are also located at each and every intersection in the form of one handicap port a potty and 2 regular port a potties. These are delivered late on Friday before the Festival and are picked up first thing on Sunday morning.
From the looks of the bike racks around the Street during the Festival, it looks like many people biked to the Fest. For those that drove, I guess they did the best they could to park and walk it in, as you have to do at every single other Festival in this City.
There was not one towed car during the Festival hours, meaning that none of our guests or vendors blocked driveways or illegally parked and required a tow.
We had 14 NOPD officers walking up and down the length of the Festival all day. We had Tulane University Police Officers riding their bikes and patrolling the neighborhood during Festival hours. We had 15 NOFD fire personnel on site, along with one fire truck and one ambulance.
It is a great day for visitors to come and artists and chefs from around Nola and to stop in to our brick and mortar stores on Freret Street that you might not normally stop in at on a regular day.
I would be happy to answer any other questions you may have about our Festival and how we plan it to have as little impact on our neighbors (of which I am one) and business owners on Freret (of which I am one).
Sincerely,
Michelle Ingram
Festival Director
freretmarket@gmail.com