French Quarter Festival Will Take Sunday Off in 2021

Rickie Lee Jones makes her French Quarter Festival debut, by Astor Morgan

The festival announces its top lines, times, and basic info including the fact that it will end a day early

Yesterday, The French Quarter Festival made it official. It will return to the French Quarter on Thursday, September 30 through Saturday, October 2, finishing a day earlier than usual to accommodate the Saints game that will take place Sunday, October 3 in the Superdome. 

The free festival will launch 2020’s fall festival season with more than 200 acts on 19 stages with performances by Tank and the Bangas, Rickie Lee Jones, Flow Tribe, Sweet Crude, Kermit Ruffins, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, John Boutté, Amanda Shaw, Water Seed, Irma Thomas, Big Chief Bo Dollis, Jr. & the Wild Magnolias, Preservation Brass, Robin Barnes, James Andrews, Little Freddie King, Deacon John, Papa Gros, Tin Men, Sarah Quintana, Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes, Dash Rip Rock, Lynn Drury, Astral Project, Big Chief Juan Pardo & The Golden Comanches, Fermín Ceballos + Merengue4FOUR, Sporty's Brass Band, Chapel Hart Band, and Lilli Lewis among others. The day-by-day lineup is online now and the schedule will be released in August.

As we wrote in February, the French Quarter Festival always seemed like the most probable festival to successfully relocate to October for 2021. The festival’s reliance on local talent meant that its payroll would be manageable, and the talent would all be here or within a hundred or so miles. It wouldn’t be subject to travel and touring challenges. Its free admission will make it accessible to even financially tight New Orleanians, and it will benefit from the pent-up excitement for New Orleans’ festivals and this year’s October festival season.

Although concerns about the size of crowds is valid, losing Sunday means the French Quarter Festival will only have one day that isn’t also a work day, which will help to prevent crowds from getting too large. 

One change to watch this October will be the impact of daylight. New Orleans will still be under Daylight Savings Time, but the sun will set around 7 p.m. The festival is scheduled to go until 9 p.m., but as in the past, that likely means one or two stages will stay up and the audience will either dissipate or flock to Woldenberg Park, where the stage is lit. That’s a concern that will also affect Jazz Fest as the sun will be down around the time stages usually close for the night.