Overview The Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival is three days of crawfish, Cajun and zydeco music in Parc Hardy on the first full weekend of May, in the town that calls itself the Crawfish Capital of the World, and by 2025 the Louisiana Association of Fairs and Festivals had named it Festival of the Year in its division 10 times in 13 years. It began in 1960 as a spin-off of the 1959 celebration of the 100th anniversary of Breaux Bridge's incorporation. The nonprofit Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival Association runs it, and civic groups, schools and athletic organizations across the city and St. Martin Parish look to the association for funding. On site Parc Hardy carries three music stages, with Cajun and zydeco bands such as Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie, Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rodailleurs and Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners. Contests run all weekend: crawfish races, a Cajun dance contest, a crawfish etouffee cook-off for teams, and a crawfish-eating contest with a celebrity heat, staged from the Heritage Tent. A parade runs through town, and the opening ceremonies go out on local and state television with live radio remotes from around Acadiana. Audience Festival weekend fills hotels, bed and breakfasts and campgrounds from Baton Rouge to Jennings, according to the association. The association pitches it to people who come to eat crawfish and to listen and dance to Cajun and zydeco music, and a Cajun dance contest runs on the grounds. Track record The Food Network devoted a 30-minute episode of All American Festivals to it in 2003, the same year the Travel Channel ranked its eating contest fourth among the country's top ten food-eating contests. USA Today picked it as the No. 2 food festival in 2002, and a Chinese-language documentary on it aired on Voice of America. The association has also won Louisiana festival marketing awards for its poster, brochure, cap and T-shirt. Brand presence The sponsor levels are named for the boil: Crawdaddy, Big Pincher, Tail Snapping, Hot-n-Spicy and Corn and Potatoes. At the top, a logo goes up at both entertainment stages, banners hang at the main gate and along the fencing on Rees Street and Doucet, announcements run from the stages and the Heritage Tent, and a sponsor gets a premium booth, a parade entry, a team in the etouffee cook-off, a seat in the celebrity eating contest and a turn on stage between bands to hand out throws. Lower levels move to fence signage and print ads. Every level sits on the association's website for a year.