The International Rice Festival is an annual festival held during the third weekend in October in Crowley, Louisiana, celebrating rice. The event is Louisiana's oldest agricultural festival, and one of the state's largest. The first festival was held on October 5, 1937 as the National Rice Festival; it was renamed the "International Rice Festival" in 1946 when the festival was resumed after a hiatus during World War II. Since the Festival's beginnings, over seven million people have attended the annual event.
There are two parades. The second is on Saturday and is the Grand Parade. There is a rice cooking contest, rice eating contest, farmers' banquet and the Queens' Ball. There is also entertainment continuously from early morning to midnight and an arts and crafts exhibit, which is held adjacent to the festival grounds and also on Main Street.
Famous quotes containing the words rice and/or festival:
“The arbitrary division of one’s life into weeks and days and hours seemed, on the whole, useless. There was but one day for the men, and that was pay day, and one for the women, and that was rent day. As for the children, every day was theirs, just as it should be in every corner of the world.”
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