Old Home Week among 10 Island festivals and exhibitions cancelled due to COVID-19

Many of P.E.I.'s celebrated festivals and exhibitions will not go ahead as planned this summer.

The P.E.I. Association of Exhibitions released a list of 10 summer events cancelled because ofCOVID-19 Monday afternoon, including Old Home Week, the Crapaud Exhibition and Tractor Pull and the Tignish Irish Moss Festival.

"Everybody's main concern is the safety of, one, the people in attendance, and then our participants, then all the tourists that we were expecting," said Robert Wood, president of the P.E.I. Association of Exhibitions.

"There's so many unknowns that we don't know we would be able to have people there anyway."

The decision to cancel the events was made on a conference call Monday. The association said it wasbased ondiscussions with the Department of Agriculture and Land and recommendations from the Chief Public Health Office.

CBC has not been able to reach all the fairs for confirmation yet.

The full list of cancellations includes:

• Tignish Irish Moss Festival.
• P.E.I. Potato Blossom Festival.
• Prince County Exhibition.
• Northumberland Fisheries Festival.
• Crapaud Exhibition and Tractor Pull.
• P.E.I. Provincial Exhibition (Old Home Week).
• Kensington Community Harvest Festival.
• Dundas Plowing Match and Agriculture Fair.
• L'Exposition agricole et le Festival acadien (The Evangeline Area Agricultural Exhibition and Acadian Festival).
• Eastern Kings Exhibition.

'A way of life on P.E.I.'

"Every festival is a large part of our small community," Wood said, adding that now was the time to cancel, as May is a big month for event planning and preparation.

"Irish Moss Festival starts the end of June and then we have a festival every weekend right through until September," he said.

Old Home Week general manager Sandra Hodder Acorn said it was the right decision to cancel Monday.

It's summertime on P.E.I. and you come home.Sandra Hodder Acorn, Old Home Week

"We have to follow the recommendations and restrictions and with not knowing what mass gatherings are going to look like, and when that may happen, we have to take into account the health and safety of everyone," she said.

For Hodder Acorn, this year's Old Home Week planning started in the days after the 2019 event ended.

"We get emails and phone calls in November looking for the date of what Old Home Week will be the following year, because they plan their vacation ...or they're planning family reunions around it," she said.

"I think exhibitions are a way of life on P.E.I."

She said Old Home Week and P.E.I.'s other exhibitions are about creating family traditions and spending time with old friends, many of whom you may not have seen since the last exhibition.

"It's summertime on P.E.I. and you come home," Hodder Acorn said.

"It is certainly a sad day."

On to next year

Though it's uncertain what the future holds for P.E.I.'s summer events with COVID-19, both the association and Old Home Weekare looking ahead to 2021.

Hodder Acorn said that may include sanitizing and keeping hands clean, and perhaps still physically distancing.

"I think 2021 is going to be a change for everything, not just fairs and exhibitions on P.E.I.," she said.

"We're not 100 per cent sure what 2021 will look like, but I don't think it will be business as normal."

Wood said the general feeling among themembership is that the events will be back next summer.

"Everybody is community minded and we're looking to put some safety measures in place for 2021 and come back bigger than ever," he said.

No official cancellations have been announced for the Tyne Valley Oyster Festival or Summerside Lobster Carnival.

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