Last week the Fantasia Fair Planning Committee came to a painful decision.
It was a determination we didn’t want to make. It was a decision none of us thought we would ever have to make.
Our hearts told us the Fair must happen. Our heads, however, told us it couldn’t. The committee made a recommendation to the Board that Fantasia Fair 2020 be cancelled. The Board accepted the Committee’s recommendation.
How did we come by this decision and why did we make it?
There are a number of reasons. First, our demographics skew heavily toward older attendees. Many have health issues that would put them at particular risk if infected. The last thing anyone on the committee wanted to do was to jeopardize the health and well-being of anyone in the Fantasia Fair family–including ourselves.
Second, just about every event in Provincetown has been cancelled through the end of the summer. There will essentially be no summer season in Provincetown–and since businesses make almost all of their money between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the committee anticipated many establishments would go out of business and expected that many establishments that survived would close early, leaving Provincetown a virtual ghost town when we would arrive in late October. We could not be sure there would be venues for our larger events. Venues are difficult in Provincetown even in a good year.
And third, we were in a position to make a full refund of all registration monies. Had we pressed ahead and later been forced to cancel, deposits made for meeting space and meals would have made full refunds impossible–this due to deposits we routinely make when we travel to Provincetown in mid-May to make arrangements.
There has been a Fantasia Fair every year since 1975. It breaks our hearts to break this long tradition, but we knew we had to do it. And yes, we hate it every bit as much as you do.
The committee is already hard at work planning Fantasia Fair 2021. It’s going to be fabulous–as FanFair 2020 would have been had it not been for the pandemic.
We already miss our Fantasia Fair family. It’s going to be tough come October–and for that reason, we’re planning some virtual activities that will provide at least some continuation of the Fantasia Fair tradition and allow us all to see and talk to one another. It will be at a distance, on computer screens, but it will be great.
We’ll keep you informed as we make decisions about how do bring us together virtually. We hope you will participate.
So there it is. We know it sucks. We would give just about anything to make it some other way.
If you are preregistered for 2020, contact Fair Director Dee LaValle at [email protected] and request a refund–or, if you prefer, ask her to roll over your monies for Fantasia Fair 2021.
