The Blackpot Festival Turns 20 This Halloween Weekend at Vermilionville, With a Cast-Iron Cook-Off and a Costume Contest

The South Louisiana Blackpot Festival & Cookoff celebrates its 20th anniversary Friday, Oct. 30, and Saturday, Oct. 31, at Vermilionville, 300 Fisher Road in Lafayette. According to the festival's 2026 event page, music starts at 6 p.m. Friday, and Saturday brings an all-day lineup, the cook-off and a costume contest. Online sales are closed, and the festival's home page says tickets will be sold at the front door.

On the event page, the final online prices were $35 for Friday night, $45 for all day Saturday and $70 for a weekend pass with camping, each plus tax. We could not find gate prices posted, so ask the festival at blackpotinfo@gmail.com, the address on its site, before you go. Its ticket page, which carries no date, says children 12 and under are free and that the event goes on rain or shine, with no refunds.

The festival's artists page, headed "2026 Artists & Band Schedule," lists more than 30 acts, including Jolie Holland, Los Güiros, The Revelers, Pine Leaf Boys, Tuba Skinny, Josh Baca & The Hot Tamales, Preston Frank, Ed Poullard, Beau Cheval, d'Lovelies and Elise Leavy. It does not say which acts play which day or when. The page describes The Revelers as mixing swamp pop, Cajun, zydeco, country and blues, and Los Güiros as psychedelic cumbia. For Friday, Lafayette Travel says the main stage opens with Diamond J and the Ruby Red Raindrops featuring Horace Trahan, then Josh Baca, with Pine Leaf Boys closing the night.

The festival began in 2006. Red Stick Ramblers drummer Glenn Fields told The Independent that year the band was playing one of Jay and Molly Ungar's music camps in New York's Catskill Mountains when Jay Ungar suggested the Ramblers start their own festival and camp in Lafayette. Bandmate Linzay Young suggested the cast-iron cookoff. That first festival was at Acadian Village in Lafayette. The festival's home page calls 2026 its 20th anniversary, and Country Roads counted the 2024 festival as the 18th.

For food, there's the cook-off. The festival's cook-off page lists five categories: gravy, which it says does not include a roux base; gumbo; jambalaya; dessert; and Cook's Choice, with cracklins, rice dressing, stew and sauce piquante as examples. It says every dish must be cooked in cast iron and open fires are not allowed, though gas or charcoal is. That page still shows a 2025 entry deadline, and we could not confirm its rules, fees or times for 2026, so check with the festival before you enter.

Tasting is not guaranteed. The same page says teams are encouraged but not required to let festivalgoers taste, with no minimum amount; samples go first come, first served, and teams can stop to save enough for the judges. Organizers do not provide bowls or utensils for tasting. Writing in Country Roads Magazine about the 2024 festival, Christie Matherne Hall described a cast-iron requirement and optional sampling, roughly 30 judges, 19 entries in the gravy category and cast-iron pot lids as the traditional prize.

The setting is part of the draw. Hall wrote that in 2024 musicians played mostly in the museum's permanent exhibits, including the schoolhouse, the chapel and a barn-style main stage, plus a temporary stage in the parking lot. The 2026 stage layout is not posted.

Campers need a weekend pass, according to the festival's camping page. The page, which is undated, says tent sites on the baseball fields at Vermilionville need no reservation, access opens at 3 p.m. Friday, cars cannot enter the camping area and cleanup is due by noon Sunday. It also says no dogs are allowed at the festival and that campers should not bring food, beer or ice chests into the village.

For live Cajun music outside festival season, our look at Fred's Lounge in Mamou covers the Saturday-morning dance that goes out live on the radio. For another Louisiana dish with its own history, see our story on the Natchitoches meat pie.

Photo: Butterbean, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (resized). Taken at the 2014 festival, then held at Acadian Village.