Mudbug Madness
This year is the 30th anniversary of Mudbug Madness, a Memorial Day weekend foodie extravaganza in Shreveport, Louisiana (map).
In case you don’t have your calendars handy, Road Trips Foodies, the dates are May 23 through 26, 2013, and it’s held at Festival Plaza, downtown.
Here’s how it all began (at least according to official records):
In 1984, a group of brave and loyal North Louisianans decided to take a stand. This group was tired of hearing: “You people in Shreveport are more like Texans than anything else. You’re hardly a part of Louisiana, at all.” So this daring group gathered in the Downtown Shreveport Unlimited office to organize their ranks and pay homage to the most cherished of Louisiana institutions – the crawfish boil! And this group wanted to make their crawfish boil the granddaddy of them all.
So Mudbug Madness was born. What began in 1984 as a two-day street festival in downtown Shreveport is now one of Louisiana’s largest and most popular Cajun festivals, featuring renown Cajun, Zydeco, Blues and Jazz artists, mouth-watering Cajun cuisine, raucous contests, and fun for all ages. Now a four-day festival held each Memorial Day weekend, Mudbug Madness is recognized as one of the Southeast Tourism Society’s Top 20 Events, drawing as many as 56,000 people in one day.
