April 29th, 2021
“Over the last week, several local outdoor festivals and events have been forced to postpone their 2021 events because of the lack of clear and reasonable guidelines from New York State. While we are disappointed with these developments, we also recognize that advanced planning for successful outdoor festivals under the current guidance is incredibly challenging.
Recent studies have shown that outdoor events and gatherings have low rates of transmission, especially when proper mitigation measures are in place and people have been vaccinated. It is crucial that our community find ways to gather together safely outdoors in the coming months, at festivals and the other summer activities we had to forego last year.
In order to do so, we are calling on Governor Cuomo and New York State to issue updated, clear guidance and guidelines specific to festivals. Without new guidelines, it is inevitable that additional festivals will be dealt the same fate as those we’ve heard from this week.
Until the time that such additional guidelines are issued, the team at the Monroe County Department of Public Health will continue to work with organizations hoping to host their events this summer to provide advice related to best practices and the state guidelines as they currently exist. We continue to ask all festival organizers in Monroe County to contact MCDPH to discuss the state guidelines and measures that can help ensure festivals are able to resume in a safe and appropriate manner this year.”
