In a normal year, the warm weather brings festival season to Greater Sudbury, with more than two dozen such events — big and small — typically taking place from May to September.
But as everyone knows, 2020 is not a normal year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and you may not get a chance to participate in your favourite summer festival this year.
Northern Lights Festival Boréal officially announced Monday morning that due to the pandemic, it has cancelled the festival that was supposed to take place July 9-12.
While organizers of several other local festivals say it’s too soon to make a call, there have already been a few announcements.
Rather than cancelling outright, Fierté Sudbury Pride has decided to hold a digital version of its annual pride week, scheduled for July 13-20.
The annual Downtown Sudbury and Sidewalk Yard Sale, which was supposed to take May 30, has been postponed, possibly for the fall.
Downtown Sudbury, which also organizes the city’s popular Ribfest event in the city’s downtown over the Labour Day weekend, says it’s too early to make a decision on this festival.
The LOL Sudbury Comedy Festival, which was set to take place this year in late May, has been postponed, potentially for later this year.
The people behind LOL Sudbury also organize the Cinéfest International Film Festival, which was scheduled for Sept. 19-27. They say it’s still too soon to make the call on the film festival.
Organizers of two other major area music festivals — River & Sky Music/Camping Festival (July 22-26) and the Up Here Urban Art and Music Festival (Aug. 14-16) — also say it’s still too early to make the call.
Northern Lights Festival executive/artistic director Max Merrifield said in an interview with Sudbury.com Monday that cancelling NLFB was inevitable, as the COVID-19 pandemic meant it just wouldn’t be “wise or safe” to go ahead.
“It’s with heavy hearts that we make this call, but we feel it’s pretty inevitable at this point,” he said.
Merrifield said if he had waited much longer to cancel the festival officially, artists probably would have started to cancel on him.
“This decision was partially in response to feedback from our audience,” he said. “They’ve said, ‘Look, you know what, I don’t think I’m going to go this year, even if it goes ahead. We’re playing it safe and the safety of everyone involved is top of mind for us at all times.”
While Northern Lights Festival made the call, Merrifield said some festival organizers hope the provincial government takes the decision out of their hands by putting a blanket ban on festivals this summer, as the province of Quebec has.
Merrifield said he sits on the board of Folk Music Ontario, and many of the member festivals are waiting for such an announcement.
“It has to do with optics from the public, it has to do with contractual obligations and financial obligations, where a government legislation is the only way for them,” he said.
Merrifield said a summer potentially devoid of festivals is going to be “different, that’s for sure.
“”I’ve been trying to encourage positivity throughout this whole thing,” he said.
“Let’s not get too down about it. But yeah, there’s not going to be a lot of live music this summer. Let’s enjoy the other things summer has to offer, like nature and just some great warm weather and spend time with close loved ones.”
Northern Lights Festival is offering three options to those who have purchased advance tickets — convert the ticket purchase into a charitable donation, roll the ticket over to the 2021 version of the festival or receive a full refund through the NLFB office.
The festival will make efforts to present many of the artists originally scheduled for 2020 at the 2021 edition (which happens to be the festival’s 50th anniversary).
For example, NLFB audiences will still be able to witness American folk icon Judy Collins. Her performance is now scheduled to perform July 11, 2021 in Sudbury's Bell Park.
Financially, cancelling the 2020 NLFB is “going to be a challenge,” Merrifield said, but fortunately, many of the festival’s government funders and even some of its corporate sponsors have “stepped up to the plate” in this situation.
“It’s looking like Northern Lights, financially, we’ll be fine with careful planning and careful management,” he said.
