{"id":51839,"date":"2020-08-31T13:20:16","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T19:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/covid-19-pandemic-forces-durangos-snowdown-2021-to-cancel\/"},"modified":"2020-08-31T19:20:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T19:20:16","slug":"covid-19-pandemic-forces-durangos-snowdown-2021-to-cancel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/covid-19-pandemic-forces-durangos-snowdown-2021-to-cancel\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 pandemic forces Durango\u2019s Snowdown 2021 to cancel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Snowdown
Snowdown 2021 has been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, event organizers announced Monday.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Although 2020 has been a year with an onslaught of bad news, this one particularly stings: Next year\u2019s Snowdown has been canceled.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor months we were trying to figure out how to make something work,\u201d said Chip Lile, Snowdown board president. \u201cBut if we care about the community as much as we do, we cannot encourage gatherings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first Snowdown was held in Durango in 1979, and every year since, the event has grown into a cherished local tradition that now draws people from all over to celebrate in the dead of winter.<\/p>\n

For five days at the end of January and early February, Durango turns into a wacky carnival-esque town, with wild themes, flashy parades and nearly 200 oddball events spread throughout the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cSnowdown thrives on large gatherings, packed bars and restaurants and streets lined with revelers,\u201d Snowdown board member Peg Ochsenreiter said in a statement.<\/p>\n

But with the COVID-19 pandemic, event organizers in March started to recognize how difficult it might be to pull off a Snowdown in 2021, which carried the wizard and warlock themed \u201cA Magical Mystical Snowdown: We Put a Spell on You.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the first year since its inception that Snowdown has been canceled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe meet once or twice a month, and we kept talking about alternatives for months and months and months,\u201d Lile said. \u201cBut we just couldn\u2019t come up with a way to do a half-baked Snowdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many factors went into the decision, Lile said. Events typically draw large crowds, which would go against social-distancing guidelines during the pandemic, and the annual carnival draws visitors from across the country to Durango.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just the week of Snowdown that posed a risk. For months leading up to the event, organizers and volunteers frequently gather to plan the week\u2019s happenings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt like that wasn\u2019t good either,\u201d Lile said.<\/p>\n

Snowdown organizers wanted to get word out about the cancellation sooner rather than later, Lile said. It follows a string of other popular events that have been canceled in the community because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe economic impact is going to be felt,\u201d Jack Llewellyn, director of Durango\u2019s Chamber of Commerce, said of Snowdown\u2019s cancellation.<\/p>\n

Snowdown was created as a sort of \u201ccabin fever reliever\u201d to bring a jolt of fun and a reason to get out of the house for Durangoans feeling cooped up during the long winter months, Llewellyn said.<\/p>\n

But the event has also become an important economic boon for many downtown businesses in a typically slow time of year.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of individuals I know from Albuquerque and Phoenix build a vacation around Snowdown events,\u201d Llewellyn said.<\/p>\n

In lieu of no Snowdown, Lile encouraged people to still get out and support local businesses.<\/p>\n

And as a slight compensation, Lile said organizers are looking toward Snowdown 2022, and how to make it extra special \u2013 perhaps an extra Snowdown that year or extending the event for two weeks to make up for lost time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going anywhere, don\u2019t worry about that,\u201d Lile said. \u201cWe just want everyone in the community to recognize we took this decision very seriously over several months.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

organizers say popular winter festival could not be held responsibly with virus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,314,28,445,1402,810],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-51839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-downtown-durango","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-snowdown","tag-tourism-recreation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51839"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=51839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}