Columbus, Mississippi Spring Pilgrimage, one of the city’s largest annual festivals that draws in thousands of tourists each year, is canceled this year amid the COVID-19 outbreak, said Nancy Carpenter, CEO of the Columbus-Lowndes County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The CVB board voted unanimously to cancel the event after receiving recommendations to cancel large gatherings from the Mississippi Department of Health (MSDH) and the Mississippi Development Authority, Carpenter said.
MSDH issued a statement Friday morning recommending that citizens avoid gatherings of 250 or more in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. There are six presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 in Mississippi, according to MSDH.
Pilgrimage was originally scheduled to take place from March 26 to April 4.
With public universities in Mississippi extending the spring break for students and moving to online classes out of concerns of the virus, Carpenter said, some students will also not be back in time to perform at some of the Pilgrimage activities.
“Their activities are such that the students are going to not even be in town over the next week or week and a half,” Carpenter said, “so they would not be able to perform.”
Hotels and restaurants in Columbus are already feeling the negative impact of the cancellation of the NCAA basketball tournaments, Carpenter said. The loss of Pilgrimage this year adds to that pressure, she said.
“All of this impacts Columbus, Columbus sales tax, Columbus restaurant tax, hotel tax,” she said.
“We are all saddened by this, but the No.1 priority is the health and wellbeing of … our community, our citizens and, certainly, our guests,” Carpenter said. “We really had no choice.”
Despite the cancellation, Carpenter said CVB will revisit that decision if the situation improves.
Tales from the Crypt is also canceled this year following guidance from the state health department, according to a press release from the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science. Tales is held at the same time as Pilgrimage every year and features performances by MSMS students who research and write their own monologues and skits based on the lives of figures buried at Friendship Cemetery in Columbus.
“For 30 years, Tales from the Crypt students have learned not only how to research, write and perform, but also how they can make significant contributions to a local community,” said Tales director and MSMS history teacher Chuck Yarborough. “Clearly, this year and these conditions require a new consideration of what is best for our entire community.”
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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