Michael Arnone's 32nd Annual Crawfish Festival to take place May 30 to June 1st
originally published: 03/17/2025
GALACTIC featuring Jelly Joseph
(AUGUSTA, NJ) -- Michael Arnone's 32nd Annual Crawfish Festival returns to New Jersey, May 30 – June 1, 2025, to showcase the best food and music that Louisiana and New Orleans have to offer. The festival welcomes several Grammy Award winning and nominated musicians and more to two stages this year.
The festival lineup includes GALACTIC featuring Jelly Joseph; George Porter Jr & The Runnin' Pardners; Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen; Terrance Simien and The Zydeco Experience (2 Sets); Marcia Ball; Southern Avenue; Bonerama; Stanton Moore; Rockin' Dopsie; Corey Harris; Carolyn Wonderland; Maggie Koerner; Eddie 9V; Amis Du Teche (2 Sets); Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes; United By Music USA; Ocean Avenue Stompers; Cold Hill; Uncle Shoehorn's Big Easy; and Frenchy.
In addition to top notch Louisiana musical talent, the festival showcases authentic Louisiana cuisine that is difficult to find anywhere in the Northeast. Featured food items include Michael's Jambalaya made with Savoie's smoked pork sausage/chicken, cooked in five 45-gallon cast iron pots, Crawfish Etouffee made with Louisiana Crawfish tail meat and other Louisiana regional dishes.
Tickets are available for purchase online. Saturday or Sunday day tickets, Saturday/Sunday Combo Tickets, 3-day camping/admission tickets and Glamping Tents (which include admission) that will provide campers with a large tent, bed, linens, outdoor chairs, and more are available.
"The great thing about this festival is its incredible authenticity," says festival creator-producer and Louisiana import Michael Arnone. "It's so real that for everybody who's moved up North from Louisiana, everyone who's homesick, this is like going home for a few days. The Louisiana atmosphere, the crawfish, the jambalaya, it's all there. I tell people the music brings them, but the food keeps them."
Campers are treated to Camper Only sets on Friday and Saturday Evening with free jambalaya on Friday for dinner. The 2025 CFF includes a limited number of "Glamping" tickets. A new Interactive Hotel Map will make it simpler to find local lodging and shuttle services. Free Parking, Kids under 14 free with parents. Service animals only. For more information on camping options, visit the FAQ Page.
Sponsors: Explore Louisiana, Bud Light, Southeast Louisiana Gumbo Group, Big Easy Cruise, Visit Livingston Parish, Smirnoff Vodka, New Jersey Lottery, Twisted Tea Hard Iced Tea, Sun Cruiser Vodka Iced Tea, Crystal Hot Sauce, Nutrl Vodka Seltzer, Michael Arnone's Jambalaya Mix, 84RV.com, and Rockin' It DME.
The festival takes place at the Sussex County Fairgrounds (37 Plains Road) in Augusta, New Jersey. For directions to the fairgrounds, click here.
THE HISTORY - An electrician by trade, Arnone first landed in New Jersey when the oil bust of the 1980s dried up those jobs where he lived. He found work as an electrician in the Garden State, but missed the tastes and sounds from back home, so he decided to import them. In 1989, he rented a small pavilion at Suntan Lake in Butler, NJ, hired a Cajun band from Connecticut and a country-western band, flew in 300 pounds of crawfish, had a single pot of jambalaya cooking, and printed up 1,500 tickets.
"I was extremely homesick," Arnone remembers. "I wanted this to be like a party in my back yard. I wanted my friends to feel like they were in Baton Rouge. I've just got a lot more friends now and my back yard is bigger."
He sold only 70 tickets that first year. The original crowd was made up primarily of Louisiana ex-pats who longed for some real home cookin' food after finding too much "Cajun cuisine" in the North that was heavy on the cayenne and light on authenticity. Word of mouth doubled and tripled the crowds in each of the first three years. Booking Buckwheat Zydeco in Year 4 further helped put the Crawfish Fest on the map, a radius then spanning 40 miles northwest of New York City and the same distance southeast of Scranton, PA. Lots of LSU and Tulane alumni began coming, many on buses from Manhattan. The festival outgrew two locations and now has been long settled at the 130-acre Sussex County Fairgrounds, where crowds these days are only 20 to 30 percent from Louisiana. The rest are those who simply wish they were there. "There are lots of people who visit New Orleans, and absolutely love Louisiana," says Arnone. "I've had people come up to me and ask if I know the bartender at a certain bar in New Orleans. I don't, but they do."
"Festivals are a tough business," says Arnone. "You're dealing with weather and everything else. Thirty years is quite an accomplishment. Even though my name's on it, this has definitely been a team effort. Without my wonderful staff, I just couldn't do it. In 1994, when we hit our 5th year milestone, a friend asked me where I see the future of this festival. I said that one day I'd like to have Aaron Neville, and 10,000 people, and I would like it to be two days. Over the years, we accomplished all that… and so much more."
"Well, I certainly hope so, it seems like it is," laughed Blues Traveler bassist Ben Wilson as he discussed what the band has been up to and their preparations before they hit the road once again for a Summer tour. "The band has been quite active over the years through touring and we managed to continue to record some records. We've done two kinds of covers records, the first one was a blues record which actually got nominated for a Grammy which was pretty cool and the next one, we did some soul covers. That one wasn't quite as well received but it was sure fun to make. So, it's been really cool; you have this massive success for a decade or so and then you kind of dip below that cultural Gestalt line where you're just kind of bubbling below the surface and you can do just fine there even though you're not on the cover of "The Rolling Stone" and that's kind of what we've been doing. We've had a good run, it has been fantastic and these summer tours where we get together with these other kind of bands of similar eras with similar kinds of hits; we're very fortunate as kind of a neo-hippie jam band from that era that kind of bucked some of the trends that were going on at the time but we were lucky enough to have a couple of hits and that has allowed us to have kind of a different career than just the straight jam bands do; not that that wouldn't be awesome as well because obviously many of them are doing just fine but it's just a slightly different road but it has been wonderful. We didn't rehearse a whole lot because we've been playing together for 38 years but things are good and we're stoked for this upcoming tour."
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