This weekend, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to converge on New Orleans for the 2025 Essence Festival of Culture. The annual festival, hosted by Essence magazine, is taking place July 3-6 at Caesars Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Essence recently announced that ticket sales are down and some vendors are opting out of its events, according to Fox 8. Still, the publication touts its festival as having had a $1 billion impact on the city since 2022. And the event has long been seen as providing a needed boost to the economy during summer months when tourism slows down.
“Fortunately, when Essence comes to town, it gives us that little boost we need to weather the storm,” said Glenn Charles, co-owner of Headliners and Nice Guys NOLA.
While some local businesses do benefit from the festival, others say that in recent years, they haven’t felt the economic impact that Essence brings.
Among the festival’s critics are members of the local Black business community who say they feel shut out by Essence Fest, a festival meant to center Black women and with marketing that emphasizes New Orleans culture.
“Essence uses New Orleans as a venue, and that’s it. They’re not here to necessarily make specific impacts on the New Orleans community,” said Jalence Isles, founder of Where Black NOLA Eats.
Representatives for the festival did not respond to a request for comment for this story by publication time.
The most visible rift between Essence Fest and the city’s business community in recent years occurred in 2023. That year, the festival issued a cease-and-desist to the Black-owned coffeeshop and bookstore Baldwin & Co. over an alleged violation of the festival’s “clean zone,” a city-designated area around the festival where commercial activity is restricted.
Festival lawyers said the Marigny bookstore had allegedly used Essence’s brand without licensing to promote an event featuring Black authors during the weekend of the festival. Essence Fest ultimately dropped the suit following public pushback.
DJ Johnson, the owner of Baldwin & Co., sees the yearly clean zones that accompany the festival as “aggressive.”
“It does prohibit Black-owned businesses, who Essence claims to prioritize … from operating and being profitable or making money or being able to capitalize on the massive amount of people that are coming in town,” Johnson said.
Other business owners, like Charles, whose Headquarters restaurant and sports bar is inside the clean zone, support the zone, which limits street vending and unsanctioned outdoor events, among other activities. The zone’s boundaries include the Warehouse District, Central Business District and the French Quarter. According to Gambit, the Essence clean zone has been significantly expanded since 2019.
“The clean zone actually helps us. It keeps the [street] vendors out so that the restaurants in the area are able to benefit from events like this,” Charles said.
The festival’s own events at the Convention Center, such as the SOKO MRKT, highlight Black and Black women-owned businesses. Some local business owners say Essence tends to center out-of-town businesses and vendors in its events, overlooking local businesses.
Isles, who founded Where Black NOLA Eats during 2019’s Essence Fest, is an advocate for the city’s Black-owned businesses. And she says those businesses largely aren’t feeling the economic impact the festival brings to the city.
“I wish that Essence felt the responsibility to be more intentional about how they allow opportunities in the community,” Isles said.
Isles thinks the festival isn’t helping to address the city’s wealth gap, in spite of the more than $300 million it has generated in economic impact each year over the past three years. Data has shown that the metro area’s Black-owned businesses lag in revenue behind their white counterparts.
The festival does have a list of local business partners on its website, including bars, restaurants, salons and cultural institutions.
One of those partners is Vyoone’s, a modern French restaurant in the Warehouse District. The restaurant is partnering with the festival this year by “elevating” McCrispy chicken sandwiches through a “brand activation” with McDonald’s, said restaurant owner Vyoone Lewis. Essence Fest used to be a reliable source of income for Lewis, but that’s changed in recent years, she said. Last year, she saw a $25,000 loss during the festival.
Although Lewis is looking forward to hosting a fun event, she isn’t optimistic that the partnership will result in any significant financial gain.
“We’re not fast food, we’re fine dining. And most of the people that come to Essence aren’t locals,” she said. “So we may get some exposure for people from other places, but it’s not going to benefit me a whole lot.”
Aside from the clean zone, which Lewis petitioned against last year, the restauranteur largely attributes the festival’s negative impact on local business to Essence’s way of partnering with vendors and local businesses.
Lewis said that last year, vendors pulled out of her restaurant’s events because Essence wouldn’t allow vendors to participate in both the festival and outside events at the same time.
Festival representatives did not respond to Lewis’ claims by publication time.
The entire experience left her feeling blackballed and shut out by Essence, she said.
“We are already disenfranchised,” she said. “We don’t need this extra pressure during this time of the year when we should be able to take advantage of some of what’s coming in.”
This weekend, Vyoone’s will have limited hours. Lewis considered closing the restaurant for the weekend, but said she was encouraged by her community to remain open. Vyoone’s is one of few downtown restaurants owned by Black women.
Other restaurants have been criticized for closing down during the festival, which caters to a primarily Black crowd. But Lewis disputes that these closures have anything to do with race — rather, she says some restaurants simply can’t afford to stay open during the weekend.
“And now more businesses are saying, ‘That’s it, we’re just going to close and move on, because it’s just not worth it,’” Isles said.