Tucson Weekly: All You Need Is Love (April 29 tucsonweekly.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tucsonweekly.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Correlation is not causation, as the old adage goes, but Arizonaâs lowest COVID numbers in months are a welcome sight to the Tucson tourism industry. Local hotel rooms are filling and community events are more common â but thereâs a ways to go before travelers to Tucson reach a pre-pandemic level, even though the town has seen a decent number of visitors over the last year.
âWe still had a fair amount of people coming for leisure travel, even throughout the pandemic,â said Dan Gibson, senior director of communications for Visit Tucson. âIt never fully went away.â
According to Gibson, travel to Tucson would fluctuate with COVID. During times when Arizona was deemed the worst hotspot for the virus in the nation, and even the world, tourism understandably waned. However, with cases currently low and many tourists pent up after more than a year of quarantine, local hotels are seeing the largest number of tourists since phrases like âsocial distan
The Tucsonics perform at Hotel Congress.
Although 2020 saw no formal festival, the minds behind the Tucson Folk Festival continued to support local music throughout the year with a series of intimate, livestreamed performances.
But this weekend, Tucson Folk Festival is returning with in-person performances at multiple venues, as well as virtual shows. The 36th Annual Tucson Folk Festival takes place Saturday, April 10, and Sunday, April 11, with in-person events at the Mercado San Agustin Annex and Park Place Mall, and online broadcasts from Centennial Hall at the University of Arizona.
“We realized we needed to find new sites, new ways we could spread out our audience, and ultimately add a broadcast component so that the festival could be enjoyed by all, even if they weren’t able to come in person,” said Matt Rolland, president of the Tucson Kitchen Musicians Association, which produces the annual festival. “Our goal with redesigning the festival was to create a live pe
Katherine and Ned Sutton in their backyard.
Hey, how about that UA women s basketball team? As columnist Tom Danehy notes this week, This was a season to be cherished, a team to be revered, and the start of something that will leave us all awestruck. This team sparked a lot of joy in our town at a time when we could really use the boost. And just wait ll next year!
This week, Tucson Salvage columnist Brian Smith lands in the cover slot with a profile of legendary Tucson musician Ned Sutton, who was a mentor to many of indie musicians who were up and coming in the 1980s. Sutton had his share of hard times as a Tucson musician, including being set up for an absurd drug bust that netted him a few years in prison, but he served his time and still knows how to strum a guitar, although he hasn t tried to do it for a living since he got out of the pen. Read all about his fascinating life starting on Page 14.
With COVID cases continuing their three-month decline, vaccines flowing and artists with a year of material ready to perform, the coming months are shaping up to be great times to attend live music in Tucson. Of course, many local venues are not quite ready to host indoor concerts. Those with patios are utilizing their outdoor spaces, and even indoor-only venues are finding unique ways to get music to the masses or prep audiences for when the time is right. The Fox Theatre is collaborating with the Downtown Tucson Partnership to bring back live music, but this isn t a traditional indoor concert series, because the music may very well come to you. Troubadour Thursdays takes place throughout April, and serves as a downtown patio tour, where local musicians will move throughout downtown and perform to multiple restaurants and open areas. Each week features a different style of music, and all of the travelling troubadours are local.