This weekend, the annual Red Stick International Festival continues with events such as the Kids’ Lab, a “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” screening and a multimedia concert and light show.
The festival is in its 11th year and originally was an animation festival that focused more on the digital arts, Randy Dannenberg, co-director of the festival, said. In the last few years, the festival was revamped to include film, music and robotics, making the event bigger and more interactive.
“It’s where creativity meets technology,” Dannenberg said. “We’re trying to … foster creativity within a tech sector because if you don’t have sort of creative scientists, then you don’t really get innovation.”
Last weekend, University students got to showcase their work at Future Fest and attend the video game symposium and game tournament. Future Fest gave students an opportunity to talk about their work and receive feedback from the community.
The festival this weekend starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday with the Kids’ Lab, where there will be activities such as exhibits presented by NASA and the John C. Stennis Space Center, a Lego lab and interactive art projects. Co-director Jesse Allison said it is important to expose children to technology at an early age so they can integrate it with whatever field they choose to pursue when they grow up. Another goal of having a workshop for a younger age demographic is to help narrow the digital divide by providing children who might not have a digital education a chance to be exposed to technology.
Part of the reason for calling it an international festival is not only to show off what is happening around the state, but to integrate different sectors and give people from different fields a chance to work together, Dannenberg said.
“Ultimately, we want to create a space where people can cross-pollinate,” Dannenberg said. “We don’t want this just to be an insular LSU thing, we don’t want this to be even an insular Baton Rouge thing. We want this to spread out.”
People from as far as Montreal, Vancouver and Seattle came for the video game symposium last weekend.
Another event of interest to students is the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” screening on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at the East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library at Goodwood. The screening will be outdoors, weather permitting, and the event will have a variety of food trucks and dessert trucks for movie-goers to pick from, Allison said.
They are hoping to expand the festival even more in the future by making strategic
partnerships with other festivals, Allison said. By partnering with other festivals, the University can bring components of the Red Stick International Festival to other regions, and other regions can showcase their work here.
The festival changes every year based on feedback from the previous year and is constantly evolving.
“We’re growing,” Allison said. “It’s fun. It’s a little daunting, trying to figure out the next thing.”