Marine Area Business Association (MABA) has cancelled its blackberry festival for 2021, after also having to cancel in 2020.
Karyne Bailey, president of MABA, said it’s not a decision that was made lightly.
“We’ve been discussing it on and off for the last three or four months as to what we were going to do,” said Bailey. “It really is in January that we have to start the organization of this festival in order to get it ready and we’re already in March.”
Bailey said between current numbers of COVID-19 that are happening and variants that are also taking off, it was apparent that the festival should be cancelled for the second year in a row.
“We don’t pay attention to just BC, we pay attention across the country, and we’re really concerned,” said Bailey. “We don’t feel it’s wise to hold a festival this summer when there are just so many people who come from out of town to attend this festival. We know from previous years they are not just coming from BC. Sometimes we have people from Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and we’ve had people from overseas.
“Although it’s hard to travel internationally just for fun, by August, that may have been lifted a bit more and that concerns us.”
While the festival has twice been cancelled, Bailey said MABA has the infrastructure in place to resume the festival when the time is appropriate. She said it will not be wiped out by coronavirus.
“We have every intention to relaunch next year,” said Bailey. “We feel that in 2022, things will be in a much calmer, more secure place. We will know whether the vaccines are actually working and whether they are helping to prevent COVID-19. The numbers of people infected will be down significantly.
“Then, we’ll be happy and pleased to invite everybody back to the community.”
Bailey said Powell River has done amazingly in keeping down COVID-19 transmission. She said local cases are among the lowest in the province and MABA wants to make sure it stays that way.
“We don’t want to potentially be the reason why our numbers might all of a sudden peak before school is going back in the fall,” said Bailey. “We’re looking at it from a number of angles and risk factors. We will definitely be back in 2022 with the caveat that COVID-19 is under control by then.”
Bailey said MABA is planning to still celebrate the blackberry this year and prompted festival-goers to stay tuned for more details on how people can celebrate the blackberry.
“There will be a celebration of blackberries this year, just not the festival; we will announce it closer to June,” said Bailey. “We held on as long as we could. If we started planning in April it wouldn’t be anywhere near as fabulous as it normally is. We’re sad, definitely, that we have to cancel for this year but we realize it’s a necessary evil, given what’s going on.”
