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Louisiana organization helps out musicians by raffling off porch gigs

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The dusty dance grounds of Festivals Acadiens et Creole will be quiet for another year, a blow not just to those of us who love the festival but especially the musicians who face another barren festival season.

That's another season without some of the high profile, paying gigs that professional musicians rely on to help get them through the year.

"Now we're kind back to the drawing how we're going to make it through this fall and maybe in to next spring. So it's really tough to be a musician right now for sure." said Louis Michot with the Lost Bayou Ramblers.

While the loss of the festivals for yet another year is devastating, there is a Louisiana organization that is stepping up to try and soften the blow by not only giving musicians a chance to play, but a chance to make up some of the lost wages.

The New Orleans based Krewe of Red Beans is raffling off "porch gigs" to residents of Lafayette and New Orleans who submit a donation to help fund these gigs.

"We're trying to pay them as much as the festivals would have by performing at the festival, but instead we're going to have them play a surprise porch concert or a surprise yard concert somewhere in Lafayette or New Orleans," Devin De Wulf, the founder of Krewe of Red Beans, explained.

Donations will be accepted through the first couple weeks of October and every Friday one of these concerts will be raffled off, and the concerts will be played the same weekend as the canceled festivals.

In order to prevent crowds from gathering the host of the show won't know until a few days before and the band won't be announced until they arrive.

If you're interested in donating and trying to win one of these concerts you can both donate and find more information by going to festfest.org.

While the crowd won't be the same size as the big festival shows the hope is that at least the pay check will be, and that's something that will go a long way for some of Louisiana's most treasured musicians.

And as Louis Michot put it, "That's what's beautiful about music is that every chance to play is a good one."

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