Summer festivals taking place?
‘It is very unusual to be still planning,’ but pandemic forces questions to be asked
For ArtsQuest, 2021 is unchartered territory.
Planning for Musikfest ‘21, the Valley’s largest music and cultural festival that is held annually in August, is still ongoing, for example.
“It is very unusual to be still planning,” said Kassie Hilgert, president and CEO of ArtsQuest. “We are still in the planning stages. With immunizations, things are changing so fast. We are trying to wait as long as possible and make a guess where we are in August.”
Hilgert and other organizers of Lehigh Valley summer events are faced with the difficult task of making plans that are safe for guests, follow the whirlwind of changing pandemic restrictions and, of course, are fun.
Because it takes so long to plan out big events, what we’re likely to see this summer is a mix of virtual and smaller in-person events, despite the increasing immunization rates in Pennsylvania.
It’s only recently that the immunization rate has started to rise in Pennsylvania. According to statistics from the state Health Department, our state started off slow, but the rate has risen exponentially, with the number of daily immunizations nearly doubling between Feb. 20 and March 20.
Those immunization rates — and their effect on cases of COVID-19 — impact decisions made by the state on crowdsize restrictions. As of now, the state’s rule on gatherings sets a limit of 15% of maximum occupancy for indoor events, regardless of the size of the venue, and 20% of maximum occupancy for outdoor events, regardless of venue size.
Earlier this month, Gov. Tom Wolf said Pennsylvania is taking a “measured approach” to lifting restrictions. The problem is, festival organizers can only wait so long.
Organizers of the annual Lehigh Valley Food & Wine Festival had to make the call in September for this year’s events. Every year, the festi
val showcases cuisine from the region’s top restaurants, offerings from vineyards and distilleries from around the world, and cooking demonstrations and workshops. The event is hosted by Northampton Community College and Wind Creek in partnership with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits.
Last year the festival had to be canceled in the 11th hour, as the pandemic first began to grip the Valley and shutdowns were ordered.
“It’s a little bit like a roller coaster,” said Sharon Beales, NCC’s vice president of institutional Advancement. “The festival really takes a lot of planning. We really had to make a call in September, not knowing what things would be like.”
The college decided that the 2021 Lehigh Valley Food & Wine Festival, scheduled for June 3-12, would be virtual and offer the inaugural Lehigh Valley Food & Wine Festival Restaurant Week at participating restaurants.
Celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse will be back for a special online event.
The festival is also a major fundraiser for NCC, helping fund scholarships and programs for students. Since 2010, the festival has raised more than $2 million.
Beales said NCC had three other capital campaigns to support the scholarship programs, so it was still able to help students, even with the loss of last year’s fundraising due to the cancelation of the festival.
“Those who rely on special events are rethinking them going forward,” Beale said. “We are fortunate that we have diverse fundraising programs. There are some organizations that rely on special events.”
Lehigh Valley Pride — a celebration of the arts, culture and history of the LGBT community that is usually held in August — draws upwards of 5,000 people each year. Last summer, organizers knew things were just too uncertain and too unsafe to host in-person events, so they shifted to a virtual event.
Plans for this year’s Pride are continuing, as host Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center closely watches how Pennsylvania lifts restrictions.
“Whether it be virtual, in person, or a combination, we will continue to plan scenarios in which our community can come together in solidarity and pride,” said Ariel Torres, Pride programs manager.
Planning for the annual Mayfair Festival of the Arts, which is held every year near Memorial Day weekend, has been going on for the last nine months, said Heather Lavin, spokeswoman for Cedar Crest College. Lavin said an announcement would be coming soon with details.
Also in a holding pattern is Allentown Fair, which is a Lehigh Valley end-of-summer tradition dating back to 1852. The weeklong fair features main stage concerts, a Midway with games and rides, and agricultural contests, as well as culinary events and competitions.
“The Allentown Fair is planning several versions of what a 2021 event could look like. The vaccination distribution gives us hope, but the kind of event that is produced will depend on the regulations in Pennsylvania,” said Beverly Gruber, fair president.
ArtsQuest is holding off as long as possible to make the final decisions on what Musikfest, scheduled Aug. 6-15, will look like.
Musikfest is the nonprofit arts organization’s biggest event, a 10-day music festival that draws nearly 1 million visitors every year. With the virus spreading through the Valley and in light of the state Health Department’s restrictions on crowds, last year’s Musikfest had to be mostly virtual, a format many large annual events took in 2020. The event hosted 90 concerts in a variety of musical genres by streaming them on Musikfest.org and televising some on Service Electric TV.
Along with the virtual shows, Musikfest offered some smaller outdoor shows. ArtsQuest found a way to make outdoor events safer, by selling tickets for “social-distanced squares” on the lawn, allowing for capacity control and enforced spacing.
Building on what was learned in 2020, Hilgert said Musikfest ‘21 is looking as if it will be virtual, but will offer many more in-person events than last year.
Earlier this year, Musikfest sought “super fans” who could help decide festival programming. Hilgert said the response was overwhelming, with 350 people taking part in six town halls over Zoom. Hilgert said fans were asked what they would be comfortable with this summer and what would they like to see as part of the Musikfest programming.
“Universally, they said safety was important, including wearing masks and social distancing,” Hilgert said. “We start there and that will give people the confidence to come out.”
Even as the Lehigh Valley begins to slowly emerge from the pandemic, organizers of large-scale festivals say they’ve learned a lot.
Hilgert said last year’s Musikfest allowed organizers to connect further and better with new audiences through virtual and broadcast programming. People from more than a dozen countries — including Japan and Peru — and 150 cities in the U.S. watched the streaming performances.
“We learned something every day,” she said. “If you take the virtual programming, we realized that it literally helped us to increase our mission to improve access to the arts for all.”