Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival

The Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, held every Labor Day weekend in Morgan City, is one of the longest-running festivals in Louisiana and a genuine expression of the town's dual identity. The shrimping fleet is blessed in a colorful waterfront ceremony, Cajun and zydeco bands play in the streets, and the food stalls serve shrimp etouffée, fried catfish, and boudin alongside cold beer.

The festival draws large crowds from across southern Louisiana and is genuinely local in character — this is not a tourist-polished event but a celebration that the town runs for itself. If your timing allows it, the Labor Day weekend is far and away the best time to visit Morgan City.

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The festival began in 1936 as the Shrimp Festival, celebrating the Gulf shrimp industry that was Morgan City's main livelihood. When offshore oil arrived in the 1940s and 1950s and became equally central to the town's economy, the festival absorbed it without irony. The resulting combination — shrimp boats blessed in a waterfront ceremony, oil industry floats in the parade — captures something genuine about a town that has always worked with what the water and the earth provide.