Officials in Parke County are running out of time to decide if the state’s largest festival will be canceled due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Held the second Friday of October for 10 days, the Covered Bridge Festival sees upwards of two million visitors seeking homemade goods and the experience of rural life each year.
But now that Stage 5 of Governor Eric Holcomb’s “Back on Track” plan has stalled until Aug. 27, which would allow festivals to operate at full capacity, Parke County Commissioners will be forced to make a decision by their Aug.17 meeting to allow vendors, businesses and landlords time to prepare — or not.
“If we went to Stage 5, I don’t think there’d be anything that we would do as far as canceling, because if the state says we’re good to go, how do I tell somebody they can’t do business,” commissioner president Jim Meece said. “We wanted to have 30 days to see how things were going after they had entered into (Stage 5), but now the governor has said we’re going to stay at Stage 4.5 until Aug. 27.
“That’s too late.”
Stage 4.5 of the governor’s plan maintains restrictions on gatherings of more than 250 people, and mandates facial coverings be worn as per Executive Order 20-37.
These restrictions — which could be extended into October as Stage 4.5 has been renewed twice and the Indiana State Department of Health has renewed the public health emergency declaration five times amid still-climbing numbers — would be impossible to enforce, especially with law enforcement and paramedics already stretched to serve nine communities at once, Meece said.
“There’s no way to enforce masking (and) no way to enforce social distancing,” he said. “First responders will have to deal with visitors every day. If even a few of them are exposed and quarantined, there would not be enough left to adequately protect our own residents.”
About 1,500 vendors and businesses set up shop at the festival each year, hosted at sites in Rockville, Bridgeton, Mansfield and six other communities throughout the county.
If canceled, those vendors and businesses would be forced to go without the annual income that has been virtually guaranteed for 63 years.
“If it’s chosen that it’s not going to happen because of the threats to us, then they’re going to lose out, and I hate that for everybody,” Meece said.
However, with an average test rate for new coronavirus cases in Indiana steady at about 7.5 percent (via www.coronavirus.in.gov), hosting the festival could result in tens of thousands of new positive cases, which could leave lasting, harmful effects on the festival and county, Meece said.
“You always hear the argument, and it’s a viable argument, that we have millions of people over the year come into the county. They come to our restaurants and our state parks — they’re here anyway,” Meece said. “They’re just not in the same density as they would be during that 10-day period, which would be about 100,000 people a day.
“If people are going to get sick, they may get sick anyway ... but you’re increasing the likelihood,” he added. “If you have 100,000 people a day, that’s 7,500 people that are going to be positive for (COVID-19) coming into the county, and over the 10-day period 75,000 people who are positive.”
In total, Parke County has roughly 17,000 permanent residents. If 10 percent of the population tested positive for the virus, he said, that would result in “1,700 positive cases as opposed to 75,000.”
Additionally, a spike in positive cases could have lasting negative effects on the community and future festivals.
“That’s a real fear for me,” Meece said. “So many of these vendors coming in ... they can fill out a form of where they’ve been, where they came from, who they were in contact with, but we have no control over any of that. It wouldn’t take much of a lawyer to question me and say, ‘Were you aware there was a pandemic going on in the world at the time? Did you not think it would carry into your county?’ I couldn’t say, ‘Well, we thought we were special.’
“How would I be able to make that argument, logically, to anybody?”
Another downside of hosting the festival is the upcoming school year. If even a few cases were confirmed, he said, whole classes could be quarantined, putting schools at further risk of shutdown due to an unnecessary increase in cases.
A common misconception of the Covered Bridge Festival, he added, is that Parke County depends on taxes generated from the 10-day event. However, Meece said the city of Rockville and the county does not profit from any tax revenue or the like from the annual festival.
Instead, costs of hosting are simply covered by Transient Merchants Licenses.
“A lot of folks think that the Covered Bridge Festival is a money maker for the county. It absolutely is not,” Meece said. “That $100 (Parke County TML fee) goes to help pay for the cost of the festival and toward first responders. If you can imagine the amount of overtime of the police departments, the ambulance service, all of those that have to be located full time in Mansfield and Bridgeton and Rockville — it barely covers the cost.”
Though the city will not be at a financial loss, Meece said he and fellow commissioners Bruce Hartman and Dan Collom are equally concerned for vendors and agencies which depend on the festival for income, such as the philanthropic organizations, charities, churches and boosters.
“The economic troubles are far reaching,” he said. “This is a dilemma. We have deep tentacles going in all directions either way we go.”
Commissioners expect to make a decision on the 2020 Covered Bridge Festival on Aug. 17 during a meeting that will be livestreamed via Parke Without Reverse (www.parkewithoutreverse.org).
