Pinch A Palooza Festival & Crawfish Eating Contest is a free, family friendly crawfish and music festival. The event takes place from noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday, April 22 at Deanie’s Seafood Restaurant’s Bucktown location (1713 Lake Ave., Metairie), offering live local music, activities for kids and over 5,000 pounds of boiled crawfish. Proceeds from the ninth annual Pinch A Palooza, sponsored in part by OffBeat, will support The Good Shepherd Nativity Mission Jesuit School; an extended-day, year-round education program for low-income New Orleans youth.

This year’s musical lineup includes Cowboy Mouth, The Topcats, Vince Vance & The Valiants, The Bucktown All-Stars, Roux the Day, the 610 Stompers and more. Actor and comedian Johnny Rock will emcee.

Deanie’s Seafood will crown the champion of the crawfish eating contest following two heats of competitors and a championship round. Registration is $20 and includes a Pinch A Palooza T-shirt. Adult contestants must register online at Pinchapalooza.com. The champion will receive a free Deanie’s Seafood crawfish boil for 20 people. Kids ages 6-12 can compete in the second annual Pinch A Palooza Junior Crawfish Eating Contest, the only one of its kind in Louisiana. Kids register for $5 from 12-1 p.m. the day of the event. The winner will take home free Deanie’s Kids Meals for a year and a toy Deanie’s Seafood Lil’ Bit Crawfish Boil Kit. For those too young to compete, there will be free face-painting, inflatables, a balloon artist, crawfish races and the world’s only Live Crawfish Tic Tac Toe table.

Deanie’s will serve up a variety of crawfish specialties, including crawfish nachos, crawfish balls, fried crawfish tails, étouffée and thousands of pounds of fresh boiled Crawfish, plus a selection of non-seafood items, beer and specialty cocktails. Save the date, and some room in your stomach.