On Saturday, about 700 cars an hour streamed into Fontainebleau Park for three hours during the Greater Mandeville Seafood Festival with no complaints and better results than last year, said Jim J.J. Richardson, spokesperson for the festival.

“Other than Thursday night’s storm, everything else was great for the festival,” Richardson said.

An earlier parking controversy with Pelican Park which included a rate hike for rental of parking spaces had festival officials looking for alternate parking arrangements, particularly for the crowded Saturday night fireworks. The alternate parking worked better than last year with no problems, said Richardson. In fact, Richardson deemed the whole festival a “great success.”

The festival donates proceeds to a number of local charities. Richardson said they are still tallying the financial receipts and will not know how much the charities have made for a few weeks.

LeAnne Cantrell of KidSense, who ran the Louisiana Lagniappe children’s area of the festival, said the fun run was a tremendous success with over 300 participants. Only 100 had pre-registered, so many will get their T-shirts later.

The area for children comprised a fourth of the total festival site, and Cantrell said the proceeds would go toward building another playground for special needs children. The sensory integration playground built at Pontchartrain Elementary and Tchefuncte Middle schools was the first of its type in the country. KidSense plans to build another playground with the proceeds.

Cantrell said the excessive heat did keep some children away, especially those that are medically and physically challenged.

“Their bodies can’t regulate the heat well, so a number of them stayed indoors rather than coming to the festival. However, other children did enjoy the alligator slide and other activities,” Cantrell said.

The music was also popular with the younger set, including Johnette Downing and In His Name. Cantrell said people were impressed with the children’s area and the family oriented festival as a whole.

Richardson said the festival organizers are concentrating on rescheduling the Country in the Park concert that was cancelled due to the severe weather Thursday night. The two main performers, Mark Chesnutt and Sammy Kershaw are looking at their schedules to determine a new date. Richardson said the public would be notified when the concert is rescheduled. Tickets for the July 2 concert will be honored at the rescheduled concert.