Boulder Leader

City of Boulder issued the following announcement on June 5.

After careful deliberation and discussions with Boulder County Public Health and community partners, the City of Boulder and Team Player Productions have made the difficult decision to cancel the 33rd annual Boulder Creek Festival® for 2020.

A City of Boulder event, the Boulder Creek Festival® originally was scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend and had been rescheduled for late July due to the impacts of the coronavirus. Team Player Productions, the event producer, has been working closely with the City of Boulder on being able to host the festival later in the summer; however, current public health guidelines no longer make this feasible.

“We are thrilled to see Boulder businesses starting to reopen. Even though some COVID-19 related health restrictions are being lifted, it is too risky to host even a smaller-scale version of the Boulder Creek Festival® this year,” said Jason Ornstein, owner of Team Player Productions. “We felt the need to let all of our vendors and community partners know that we cannot safely gather for the event this year under the current state guidelines and are fully committed to bringing back the Boulder tradition next year. This has been one of the toughest decisions we’ve had to make in our 24 years of producing events in Colorado.  However, as we put the 2020 festival to rest, plans are already underway for next year’s Boulder Creek Festival®, where we look forward to coming back stronger than ever on May 29-31, 2021.”

Boulder Creek Festival® usually hosts over 50,000 people daily with over 300 vendors from across the state. The festival has launched the Virtual Marketplace on BoulderCreekfest.com to continue to support their small businesses and partners that had already signed up for the event. The Marketplace features all festival vendors, many of which have capabilities for online shopping. 

“The impacts of this pandemic have forced us to make many tough decisions, and we are saddened to cancel Boulder Creek Fest this year.” added the City of Boulder Parks and Recreation Director Ali Rhodes. “While disappointed, we are grateful for the technology that allows us to still connect our vendors with event-goers and look forward to 2021 when we can all celebrate this tradition again in-person.”

In canceling the festival, several factors were considered, including public health, city resources and economic impact. It was determined that current health restrictions would not be lifted in the next 60 days to host a sizeable event such as the Boulder Creek Festival®. The event, traditionally Saturday through Memorial Day, will return in 2021.

Original source can be found here.