Published on : Saturday, May 2, 2020
The festival plays a significant role to support small tourism businesses and restaurants in Holland. According to reports, approximately 500,000 people come out for the festivities and collectively spend $48 million around the city. Gwen Auwerda, Executive Director, Holland Tulip Time festival said in a statement that the process of unwinding the festival is quite difficult.
She shared that the process of cancellation involves making a lot of difficult phone calls, requests for the return of security deposits, and refunding early-bird ticket sales. She said that when the entire income opportunity for the whole year gets canceled, fundraising remains the only available option. She informed that some patrons are donating their early bought tickets to the festival fund but the future continues to be uncertain. She also mentioned that authorities have already filled out all the SPA loans and PPP loans from the CARES Act.
She added that the parade route of the festival is always packed with people side by side and they walk shoulder to shoulder throughout the entire route. She mentioned that the decision was inevitable as it would have been hard to manage an outdoor public event where one cannot control where people stand, walk, or sit amid the unprecedented circumstances.
The authorities are hoping that the Tulip Time Festival can be organised again next year despite uncertainties regarding COVID-19 and how the event would shape in the later future. Organisers would be contracting entertainers for the next festival but are currently waiting for updated CDC guidelines.
However, Auwerda expressed that she is optimistic regarding the festival in 2021 and is using the present time as an opportunity to rethink the operations of a large scale public festival in the time of COVID-19.