The second annual FestiGals gets underway today and headlining the four-day festival is Hoda Kotb, probably still best known around here for being a former Channel 4 anchor.
 
Organizers say FestiGals is a four-day summer weekend festival created by women for women, offering a full range of inspirational seminars, empowerment workshops and networking opportunities designed to showcase the New Orleans cultural scene for an experience that usually only insiders ever get to see.  

"With the announcement of Chef Folse as our featured culinary offering, this year's FestiGals experience is simply over-the-top.  We are thrilled and honored to welcome Chef Folse on board," explained Diane Lyons, Founder of FestiGals.

Attendees will also be treated to lunch with NBC's Hoda Kotb, a series of private tours and cocktail receptions at coveted New Orleans locations, a parade through the streets of the French Quarter as stars of their own second-line, dancing the night away on Bourbon Street and shopping 'til they drop on world famous Royal Street.

Kotb, now a Today Show co-host, Dateline correspondent and New York Times bestselling author, will deliver her keynote speech during a luncheon at the historic Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter.

"This event won't be your usual keynote presentation.  It will highlight the Bodacious Bras for a Cause Luncheon.  As a cancer survivor and in support of other women battling this disease, Kotb's event offers up a creative menu of artfully designed bras for a special auction that benefits the Cancer Association of Greater New Orleans, Lyons says.  "Kotb has created a bra that promises to be a hot item on an 'A' list of creations that includes submissions by award-winning country singer Martina McBride, CNN political correspondents Mary Matalin and James Carville, the King of Bam celebrity Chef Emeril Lagasse and Gayle Benson, wife of New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson."  

Today is the last day to bid.  

If you're looking for cupcake vodka cocktails and other girlie treats, check out their Saturday night party in the French Quarter.
"FestiGals will have you sashaying down Bourbon Street in your very own New Orleans-style Second-line Parade," Lyons promises.  "The Stiletto Stroll takes place on Saturday and ends with an exciting After Glow Party."

Click here for the FestiGals website.