Cotton District Arts Festival officially postponed
With the continued spread of the coronavirus across Mississippi and the transfer of all Mississippi State University spring semester courses to online, the Starkville Area Arts Council and Cotton District Arts Festival members have officially postponed the event.
At the moment, SAAC president John Bateman said they are unable to confirm potential dates but are working with the city of Starkville and the Greater Starkville Development Partnership on options.
“The goal is to continue to plan the festival as much as we can, which means identifying the musicians, food vendors, artisans, volunteer groups and sponsors so that when we have an all-clear we can proceed without starting from scratch,” Bateman said.
This postponement is not something that happened in this last week alone, Bateman noted, but is the result of meetings regarding the festival over the last three weeks.
“There are so many things that go into planning a festival, and we were already looking into this as early as when South by Southwest canceled their festival in Austin, Texas,” Bateman said. “We knew then that it was something we should start talking about. That really woke up a lot of people to the potential severity of what was going on.”
As they attempted to plan around the pandemic, Bateman said they struggled as the news was changing every week or every few days.
“Then, it began changing daily,” Bateman said. “Last week, we would start making decisions and an hour later more news would get announced that changed everything we decided.”
Beyond their goal to reschedule the festival, Bateman said public health and safety is the priority, which is why he said they are not planning to announce new dates soon in case the situation takes longer to resolve.
“The ultimate goal is that we do not want what has been happening in Italy and that is now happening in Seattle, where the number of ventilators needed, the number of ICU beds needed are insufficient, to happen here,” Bateman said.
As news about COVID-19 began to progress, Bateman said they knew they were on the right track but noted it was a matter of making sure that they identified the different variables, such as vendor and service providers, affected before announcing their decision to postpone.
“We suspected we would have a chance to reschedule it, so we did not want to outright cancel it,” Bateman said. “We are in a different position this year than we were last year.”
This year will mark the second year in a row the CDAF is unable to continue as planned, with the festival last year canceled due to inclement weather.
Due to last year’s cancelation, Bateman said they have been planning two festivals, the normal festival in the city and a contingency plan for the festival that would take place in Humphrey Coliseum on the MSU campus.
However, Bateman said their extensive planning and attempts to consider various external factors did not include the unprecedented pandemic facing the nation and the rest of the world.
“We can’t predict every variable,” Bateman said. “There is weather, and now, there is this public health crisis, so we just have to do the best we can in building flexibility around the festival.”
As they continue the planning process, Bateman said there are many other festivals he will work in conjunction with, specifically Oxford’s Double Decker festival since they often book the same artists.
“I want to do the best we can so we can reschedule in a way so that our artists can hit all the festivals that they normally would because this season is a lot of income for them,” Bateman said.
Despite the unfortunate circumstances, Bateman said he is working to stay positive and focus on doing what he can to work on the festival in the meantime.
“The festival truly is a community endeavor, so when things like this happen, there are a lot of people who are trying to help figure out solutions,” Bateman said. “For now, we are doing our best to continue planning and to stay positive and healthy.”