UPDATE: 2020 Grundy County Corn Festival canceled

MORRIS — The theme for the 2020 Grundy County Corn Festival was to be "Corn Festival - Where you are always welcome!"

The COVID-19 pandemic was certainly not welcome, and as a result, the Corn Festival board unanimously voted to cancel this year’s festival, which would have been the 72nd annual event, due to so many unknowns and variables at this time.

"We know that the cancellation will be a big disappointment for many people," a release on the festival's website, cornfestival.org, reads. "Please know that our board made this decision with heavy hearts and analyzed every avenue to make it happen to no avail. The attendees, staff, and volunteers of our festival and our community's well-being and safety is of utmost concern to all of us.

"The Illinois Department of Public Health currently has not published their festival and parade guidelines, the state’s inspectors for carnivals are not doing inspections, and there is a possibility that we cannot obtain necessary permits/licenses for this year.

"Again, we are deeply saddened in making this extremely difficult decision, but look forward to another great festival in 2021."

The festival was scheduled to run from Sept. 23-27, beginning with a concert by the Morris Community High School Madrigals and a talent show on the 23rd and culminating with the annual 150+ unit parade on the 27th. In between would be various shows and bands playing on the music stages, the annual queen coronation and food vendors lining Liberty Street. 2020 marks the first time since the first festival in 1949 that is has been cancelled.

Corn Festival Board member Jim Maskel explained that there were many things to consider, and that the board felt that the time was now to make this decision.

"We had thought about waiting until August 1 to decide," he said. "But, we held out as long as we could. The state board of health hasn't published any guidelines for fairs or festivals. We know that the state isn;t doing any inspections so we weren't going to be able to get certifications.

"We went over every single event on the schedule, and every one of them would have had to do something different. It just seemed like the time to cancel it was now, so that some of the vendors could try to find somewhere else to go if they could."

Maskel gave an example of the art show, which is held in the basement in the Morris Public Library. The library only allows 15 people in that room, and there are seven employees. That would mean that only eight people could enter the art show at a time.

"By nature, Corn Festival is a social event," Maskel said. "People come downtown and they see friends and get together and socialize. It would be impossible to maintain social distancing. Like the beer garden. How do you maintain social distancing there? Or people watching the bands on the stages. You can't put 'X's' on the ground and expect people to stay there.

"We had talked to other fairs and festivals that have already cancelled and they had the same concerns we did. There was also insurance and liability issues to take into consideration. It would be hard to prove that someone caught COVID-19 at Corn Festival, but we know people would try.

"We had hoped that by September we would be back to normal enough, but then you see these other states that have opened up and they have these big spikes. We have been pretty lucky in Grundy County not to have a lot of cases, but for something like Corn Festival, people come from all over the state and who knows what they might bring with them? We just felt it was best for everyone to cancel this year and look forward to a better year in 2021."