New Roads residents packed Main Street on Saturday for the second day of the 15th Annual Harvest Festival on False River, a three-day celebration of food, music and local agriculture that has drawn families back to the small Pointe Coupee Parish city for a decade and a half. This year's event runs from Friday through Sunday, with a carnival, two stages of live music, crafts, a pageant and a Halloween costume contest rounding out the weekend.
The festival is dedicated to supporting the local agriculture-based community, according to the event's official site, harvestfestnr.com, and takes place every year along Main Street in New Roads. As WBRZ reports, the gathering has become a fixture for the community, with the festival offering food, carnival rides, crafts and a pageant alongside the music.
A Tradition That Pulls People Back Home
The Harvest Festival started 15 years ago and has become a tradition for many families, and the annual event brings tourism dollars to the small town, according to the earlier wbrz.com report on this year's return. People who no longer live in New Roads reportedly schedule their trips home just for the Harvest Festival, using the weekend as a chance to reunite with family and friends. The festival brings the city and surrounding areas together for the weekend, according to wafb.com.
Carnival wristbands are $30 per day and can be purchased at the carnival itself, per the event's listing on harvestfestnr.com, with the festival centered around 211 W Main St. The schedule includes a Halloween Costume Contest for both adults and kids at 7:30, and the festival opens with its own Harvest Fest pageant, a tradition organizers say kicks off the weekend's events.
New Operator, New Inspections After Last Year's Ferris Wheel Incident
This year's carnival looks different behind the scenes. New Roads city officials hired Mitchell Brothers Amusements to run the rides instead of Crescent City Amusements, the previous operator, according to a separate wbrz.com report on the festival's ride changes. The switch follows an incident last year in which two girls, approximately 11 and 13 years old, were injured after falling from a Ferris wheel at the festival, a case the outlet's investigative unit examined in detail.
Investigators determined that an open door on tub 16 caught on a spoke, which prevented the tub from staying level and caused it to invert, dumping the riders out, the station's investigative report found. That wheel was manufactured by a different company than the one used this year; organizers brought in a Luna-Park Rides Ferris wheel for this year's festival instead. The outlet's investigative team also noted that a similar incident without injuries was reported in Florida in February 2017, involving the same type of ride.
Ahead of this year's event, inspectors from the Office of the State Fire Marshal examined all ten rides at the festival and cleared them for operation on Friday, per the station's report. Since last year's incident, more than two dozen state fire marshal deputies have been certified as amusement ride safety inspectors, part of a broader push for oversight across Louisiana's traveling carnivals.
Main Street Busy Through The Weekend
With inspections completed and a new operator running the midway, Saturday's crowd moved between the carnival, craft vendors and the festival's two music stages as the weekend continued. The festival wraps up Sunday with its final day of events on Main Street, closing out another year of a celebration organizers and longtime attendees describe as central to New Roads' identity as a small agricultural town on False River.
