BATON ROUGE - It was another gorgeous weekend in Baton Rouge and the weather held off for everyone to enjoy a little bit of soul music.

Hundreds gathered downtown for the annual Baton Rouge Blues Fest, both locals and out-of-towners, have waited years for this festival to make its comeback.

"Awesome. Very awesome, I love the music," Danny Sonnier said. 

This is Danny Sonnier's first time attending the Baton Rouge Blues Festival. He came all the way from Port Barre, Louisiana.

"My buddy's a musician and his friends are going to play so he wanted to come back. We came yesterday, left last night, and came back this morning," explained Sonnier. "Everybody gets along, no fights, that's what I like."

Not only is the Baton Rouge Blues Fest bringing everyone together once again to enjoy each other's company, but it's also bringing good business for local artists who may have lost some of that from the COVID pandemic.

Jordan Hefler is a local photographer and artist and she relies on festivals like the Baton Rouge Blues Fest to keep her business running.

"Festivals are like my livelihood and Baton Rouge Blues Fest is one of the best ones around because it's free, it's great to see the community out here. So, I'm not only running my booth, I'm taking pictures, trying to get everything I can in. It's a great way I think to support the local community culturally but also economically."

And with hundreds of people packing downtown Baton Rouge, Hefler says it's great to see a sense of normalcy.

"It's been great because you were worried during COVID, am I ever going to make money again? Am I ever going to see people again? Are we ever going to hear music again? What about the musicians, are they going to get to play again? So, it's been great to see that we didn't skip a beat, everyone's back in action."