The Shediac Lobster Festival has come a long way from it’s humble beginnings as a lobster boil in 1949.
Festival president Pascal Haché says the festival committee started planning the landmark celebration two and a half years ago.
“It’s been an amazing ride so far,” he said about this year’s festival which started on July 5th. “People are present (…) the rides are busy, our events are full so we can’t ask for much better,” he said.
He said everything is bigger and better this year, including the musical acts which included the Hay Babies and Salebarbes.
The festival is also offering a free shuttle service this year, as part of a partnership with NB Liquor.
“We have bus routes that are taking people from Moncton, Dieppe and camping grounds in the region,” he said. “They bring (spectators) on site and then they bring you back from when they picked you up.”
He says the program has been very popular with festival goers.
The carnival games and rides, like the ferris wheel or the Zipper, are popular draws for the crowd.
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Beau Miller, a supervisor for Campbell Amusements, has been working the rides and games at the festival for 45 years.
The Ontario resident still remembers the first time he worked at the Lobster Festival in 1979.
“One thing I like about this festival is the very first time I come in all downtown was lit up,” he said. “And that just got me right there like, Shediac, wow. I always remember that.”
Miller says working at carnivals saved him from going down a dark path when he was just 16 years old. After a brush with the law, a judge told him to “get a job or go to jail.”
There was a carnival behind the halfway house he was living in. The rest is history.
“This is a way of life, this is not work,” he said of his life travelling for various festivals.
Haché said there were more culinary experiences at the festival this year, like chefs doing demonstrations of how to prepare lobster in unique ways.
One longstanding culinary tradition that drew a crowd on Saturday was the lobster eating competition.
Five contestants had only a few minutes to de-shell and eat two whole lobsters, without utensils.
Some of them used the provided water bottles to smash the shells to pick them apart.
Winner Serge Boucher, who took the title for the second time this year, says there’s no method to the madness.
“I’ve been eating lobster all my life so I’m accustomed to it. I had to go against my friends so it’s more ego than anything!” Boucher laughed.
The festival wraps up on Sunday with La grande table, an event where diners eat a lobster dinner at a long table set up on Shediac’s Main Street.