Utah Arts Festival cancels 2020 event

Calling it a postponement, the Utah Arts Festival will not take place in late June of this year due to “safety concerns and uncertainty related to COVID-19.”

“After careful deliberation over the past month, the Utah Arts Festival has decided to postpone the 2020 Festival until June 2021,” leaders wrote in a statement. “The staff has been carefully monitoring local and national guidelines and recommendations for large-gatherings over the last couple of weeks. Taking into consideration the health and safety of the community, artists and all those involved with putting on the Festival, a decision was made to postpone the event until June 2021.”

Rescheduling the festival was simply not an option, leaders say.

“Delaying the Festival until the late summer or early fall isn’t as easy as it might seem. There are many moving parts, many people and many factors to consider. The option was evaluated thoroughly, but ultimately uncertainty about availability of artists, vendors, partners and volunteers, as well as the developing situation with the COVID-19 pandemic raised more concerns than solutions. For that reason, we believe it is in the best interest of all involved to postpone the event to 2021,” Lisa Sewell, executive director of the Utah Arts Festival said.

In the coming weeks, the staff will be working with their artistic coordinators to identify opportunities that will allow the Utah Arts Festival to maintain its connection with the community and continue to support and promote art and artists as well as their other non-profit partners. Although the Utah Arts Festival will not have a physical Festival in 2020, they aim to keep the festival vibes alive. An announcement will made shortly relating to those future plans.

The Utah Arts Festival is in its 44th year and features over 170 visual artists, more than 100 performing arts groups, and brings over 70,000 participants each June to celebrate artistic expression in the heart of Salt Lake City. The Festival includes top world, national and local musicians and performers and program slates in literary arts, visual arts, kids’ activities, dance performances, musical commissions, street theater, art & technology, urban arts, film and culinary arts.