ROCHESTER, Minn. – The coronavirus pandemic continues to take its toll on annual events and seasonal activities.
The Rochester Downtown Alliance (RDA) says it is cancelling Dogs Downtown and Harvest Festival (formerly Fall Fest) for 2020 to avoid any risk of spreading COVID-19.
“Entering a new year, we were making plans to move Dogs Downtown from the dog days of summer to a cooler month and to transform Fall Fest into a more experiential event now known as Harvest Festival in 2020,” says Monika Kopet, RDA director of events and strategic partnerships. “We’ll wait for better times to debut and celebrate these exciting changes in person with the Rochester community.”
Minnesota’s current Stay Safe Plan calls for outdoor events to not have more than 250 attendees and RDA says Dogs Downtown and Fall Fest attracted thousands of people in 2019.
“As with every difficult decision we have made this year, we carefully weighed our community desire for togetherness at this challenging time against continued public health concerns,” says Holly Masek, RDA executive director. “While we had hoped for a return of events by fall, our number one priority is always safety.”
RDA says a decision will be made by September 28 on holding Rochester’s annual “Here Comes Santa Claus” event, which is right now scheduled for November 28.
