Along with national favorites Lollapalooza, South by Southwest and Sasquatch!, Louisiana has made its presence known with music festivals like Festival International de Louisiane and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
A fairly new event to the festival scene born out of the desire to help those in need, Hogs For The Cause is a New Orleans concert and culinary festival staged to benefit patients of pediatric brain cancer. 
The festival began as an informal gathering of friends, complete with a roasted pig and keg of beer. Upon meeting cancer patient Ben Sarrat Jr., Rene Louapre and Becker Hall saw the good that could come from food, drinks and entertainment. Thus, the first HFTC was dedicated as fundraising aid for Sarrat and his family.
Since Sarrat’s death before the event’s second year, Hall and Louapre have worked to develop HFTC into a legitimate public event to help cancer patients and their families. The festival will soon celebrate its fifth year as an official public event. Louapre said it is “first and foremast a cause.”
“Our first year was in 2009,” Louapre said. “We had one pig, three kegs of beer and maybe 200 people. Every year, we’re becoming more and more of a legitimate festival.”
The festival’s two days consist of a large-scale barbecue cook-off and a roster of popular bands. This year’s lineup boasts 15 acts, including some well-known names like Drive-By Truckers and the recently booming jazz trio Moon Hooch.
Louapre said he sees HFTC as an appropriate example of what locals have to offer to visitors. The fun-filled atmosphere and philanthropic nature of the festival paints a picture of Southern hospitality combined with a desire to help those in need.
The intention of raising awareness of benefitting patients is something Louapre said he hopes dispels any notion that Louisianans are self-indulgent and aloof to grave problems.
“We are dealing with a very serious issue,” Louapre said. “We want to raise money for that in a fun, enjoyable, kid-like atmosphere. That’s what we want to get through — that caring nature of New Orleans and Louisiana. We’re an incredibly selfless group in south Louisiana, and that’s what we want to show.”
For Louapre, an essential element of HFTC is the cook-off. As the main component of the festival, the barbecue cooking competition stands as a point of attraction for most attendants. This year’s event is set to feature 83 different teams from around the country.
Attendants are encouraged to sample the teams’ wares while the day is highlighted by musical performances. Those in attendance also can vote for the winner of the competition, crowing that team the “Louisiana pork
champion.”
Rather than the food itself, Louapre said he sees his relationship with these cooking teams as one of the most important parts of hosting HFTC. Over the last five years, Hall and Louapre have formed friendships
“[The teams] look forward to it each year, and we look forward to them each year,” Louapre said. “We’ve come into the barbecue spirit. It’s just a huge, tremendous network that we love being part of. If it wasn’t for the teams, I don’t know where this charity would have gone.”
You can reach Gerald Ducote on Twitter @geraldducoteTDR.