The board of the National Music Festival recently announced its decision to cancel the popular August event.
âThe safety of our musicians, audience, and community is of paramount importance,â said NMF Artistic Director Richard Rosenberg in a news release. âSome of our musicians have told us that they are not yet comfortable traveling or congregating with groups of people, and we take those concerns seriously.â
While vaccination rates continue to rise, Rosenberg said it was not possible â or responsible â for the festival to go forward as planned with musicians traveling from all over the world to perform.
The National Music Festival is the latest in a long line of street fairs that have had to postpone or reschedule events planned for this summer due to the pandemic. This lack of traffic is being felt by businesses across the country.
Literally.
The Town of Chestertown and Main Street Historic Chestertown inked a Memorandum of Understanding last week that transfers ownership of a newly purchased mobile stage to the town in exchange for assurances related to storage, maintenance, repair, transport, setup and breakdown, and insurance and liability.
âThe board of Main Street felt it would be important before we totally just give the stage to the town that we make sure that weâre all on the same page. We sort of assume that we are, but we want to make sure that our assumptions are correct,â Kay MacIntosh, program manager of Main Street Chestertown, told the mayor and council at their Dec. 7 meeting.