Pandemic takes toll on summer events
From the flag-waving fun of Edmond's LibertyFest to the hard-rock sounds of Pryor's Rocklahoma, the coronavirus pandemic has begun encroaching on many of Oklahoma's summertime celebrations.
Even as the state begins reopening under Gov. Kevin
Stitt's Open Up & Recover Safely Plan, marquee events continue falling off the calendar as organizers cancel, postpone or move t hem online.
“I think it's just kind of getting used to the new normal of what entertainment is right now ,” said Maddie Gregor y , media chair for the nonprofit
Woody Guthrie Coalition, organizers of Oke ma h' s annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, which is moving online this year.
“As much as we would love to be in downtown Okemah and on the Pastures of Plenty with all our friends and family, it just can't happen right now.”
Slow start
The unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day weekend usually is packed with events. But this year, the May 23-25 holiday frame will go without many long-standing traditions. The Paseo Arts Association has delayed its 44th Annual Paseo Arts Festival to Sept. 5-7, which is Labor Day weekend, while the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is shifting its 30-year-old Chuck Wagon Festival to the September holiday, too.
Billed as“America' s Biggest Memorial Day Party ,” the 14 th annual Rock la ho ma music and camping festival at the Pryor Creek Music Festival Grounds has been postponed to 2021, along with the venue's inaugural Born & Raised Music Festival, a new country music fest that was planned for June 6-7.
Typically in early June, the National Cowboy Museum's Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition & Sale has been rescheduled this year to Aug. 1 to Sept. 13, and the deadCenter Film Festival will go primarily online June 11-21 for its 20th edition.
The state' s largest film festival will be centered at www.deadcenterfilm.org instead in various venues around downtown Oklahoma City, although organizers are looking at pop-up drive-in movies and other options to give the festival an in-reallife component.
“We' re going to come up with t he most socially responsible way to get people together experiencing a movie as a community, but do it in a way where there's also a possibility of social distancing,” said deadCenter Executive Director Lance McDaniel.
Social distance
Typically scheduled the same weekend as deadCent er , t he 34th Annual Red Earth Festival is shifting to later in summer. An intertribal celebration of Native art, dance and culture, the festival was scheduled for June 13-14 but has been postponed, said Red Earth Co-Director Eric Oesch.
“We think people will be more ready to get out at that time,” Oesch said. “We just want everyone to feel comfortable, safe and secure, and we're looking at the CDC guidelines.”
The festival was slated to move this year from downtown Oklahoma City's Cox Convention Center to the Grand Event Center at the Grand Casino Hotel & Resort in Shawnee. The Grand Casino, owned by the Citizen
Potawatomi Nation, remains closed due to the pandemic.
The Red Earth Festival annually draws an estimated 14,000 to 17,000 artists, dancers and attendees over three days.
Due to the pandemic, Oesch said the Art Market will have a different layout this year.
“In the past, you'd try to pack as many artists in a room as you could. Now, we're going to have a whole new train of thought where we social distance booth placement,” he said.
Not-so-festive Fourth
Social distancing is one factor that led to this week's cancellation of Edmond's massive LibertyFest, a multiday Fourth of July celebration that includes 10 events, including a car show, carnival and fireworks display.
The LibertyFest Parade, touted as Oklahoma's largest hometown July 4 parade, normally draws more than 50,000 viewers.
“The nature of this event calls for gathering and we just can't do that without putting our community at risk ,” said Chair woman Maggie Murdock Nichols in a statement.
In addition, A Taste of Edmond, an event where attendees sample offerings from local restaurants, is the primary fundraiser for LibertyFest, and organizers felt that asking eateries to donate labor, time and food wasn't appropriate given the dining industry's struggles with the pandemic.
Virtual music
Although the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival isn't until July — it's scheduled every year around Guthrie's July 14 birthday — the Woody Guthrie Coalition announced last week that this year's event will be a virtual celebration of the folk icon's legacy. The lineup is still being finalized.
“There's a lot that goes into planning the festival, as well as booking the flights, getting the food service. (It's) a lot of things that we're not really sure how they'll be affected in July,” Gregory said.
“Last year and the year before, it was people from at least 30 states coming to the festival. Crossing those state lines, I think that we just believe that could further devastate (with) this virus, unfortunately.”
Affectionately known as WoodyFest, this year's event was slated for July 15-19, and it typically draws about 100 musicians and 3,000 music lovers to Guthrie's hometown of Okemah for live concerts, children's activities, poetry readings and more. Given the number of remote musical performances people have been seeing on social media and television, Gregory said she is hopeful that people will embrace the virtual WoodyFest.
“We really didn't want to cancel the physical festival, but instead of pushing it back ... to the fall, we just decided that a virtual festival would be kind of the best of both worlds,” she said. “It won't be the same, of course, but I still think it will have a little bit of magic to it.”