The Strathmore Performing Arts Festival (SPAF) organizers have pulled the plug on this year's event.

After the latest announcement from Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Chief Medical Officer of Health regarding the closures of schools and child care facilities, as well moving to include places of worship as no longer exempt from the recommended restrictions on mass gatherings the organizers saw the need to make a decision.

On Sunday evening the SPAF board met to discuss how to proceed with the festival and President of the SPAF Carolyn Steeves said, " the decision to cancel the festival was made with a heavy heart, we felt because schools were closed indefinitely and churches were closed to large gatherings that we pretty much had no option, we didn't know what the end game was going to be so we thought it was the best thing to do."

The Provincial Festival will be held at the end of May however without performers being able to showcase in the festival they are not able to qualify for the Provincial festival which at this time Steeves was unsure if it would be taking place as scheduled at the end of May. Steeves also noted many other festivals throughout Alberta coming to the same decision and canceling their planned events also.

The SPFA was planning its second annual festival this year with entrants from across the province. Steeves expressed the disappointment among everyone involved as the team had worked hard to make this festival bigger and better than in 2019.

For this year's festival Steeves noted that there were 284 entries with participants coming from Red Deer, Cardston and other areas around Alberta this is effecting a lot of Children, "I've had students in tears, parents upset, I'm going to cry just talking about it we're just devastated. There are no other words we just sat around last night and it was painful."

Although the festival has been officially canceled Steeves says the students are resilient, and will find other ways to share their performances. The board discussed and is in the process of setting up a way for the performers who are able to still showcase what they have worked on this year by bringing the performances online.

The board sent out a notice to parents to send in a video to the strathmorepaf@gmail.com of the children performing so they can be posted and people will still be able to see performances.

Although this year SPAF is feeling the effects that the Covid-19 virus is taking they are already setting their sites on sharing the performances online this year and are ready for 2021. SPAF has set the festival dates starting on
March 19 to April 1st and contact donors and registered performers to see if they want to have the funds sit and be there for next year or not, Steeves notes that the decision will, of course, be left up to the donors and registered acts.

Steeves sees the resiliency in the children and knows that although they may be disappointed now they will come together and support each other as they plan for the future.