Baton Rouge’s first Ebb and Flow Festival, a free arts and music festival, will be held April 1-2. 
The Ebb and Flow Festival, located on the riverfront downtown, will be kicking off the April festival scene. In the coming weeks, Louisiana will be home to larger music festivals like the French Quarter Festival, the Baton Rouge Blues Festival and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
This two-day festival, in its inaugural year, is based on the long-running Fest for All. The Ebb and Flow Festival gives Fest for All a modern twist. 
The fest will include a diverse music lineup, representing a wide variety of artists. The headlining acts are Tab Benoit and funk band Cameo. 
“This event includes many interactive components from the arts, water ecology, humanities, and science sectors,” said Arts Council President and CEO Renee Chatelain. “Audiences can participate in makerspaces [and] dance to the diverse array of music on three stages throughout the area.”
The performances will be held on multiple stages including the Headliner Stage at Repentance Park, the Cox International Music Stage at Riverfront Plaza and a Buskers Stage at the Baton Rouge Dock.
Festival-goers will also be able to soak up performance art, dance and theatre, while interacting with sculpture from local and international artists.  
Chatelain said she is most looking forward to the “incredibly diverse offerings and the way that the creative sector has enthusiastically embraced the event.”
The Ebb and Flow Festival will feature printmaking with a steamroller, a human library, yarn bombers and sculptures from Icelandic artist Steinunn Thorarinsdottir, along with an array of food and drink options. 
Chatelain said the idea for the fest, which has been in the works for a year, first stemmed from conversations that she had with stakeholders concerning  “the need to create an appealing cultural brand or the Capital City.”
The festival is in the first phase of a plan that will be unfolding over the next three-five years, Chatelain said. The fest will eventually include exhibitions on barges and an internationally-juried design competition. 
Chatelain said she hopes festival-goers “gain pride and confidence in their city” and that tourists see “Baton Rouge as a city in forward motion that embraces diversity, creativity and education.”
“We wanted the festival to celebrate the history, but also the forward movement of the arts and culture, as well as the water industry here,” she said. “When we began to discuss the way that Baton Rouge historically allowed Louisiana’s gifts to flow through it to other areas of the state … we wanted to celebrate all that is actually in our city and region — what ebbs and flows here.”
The Ebb and Flow Festival will be held April 1-2. The event is free.