Oregon’s Alpenfest plans for 2021 after cancelation of 2020 festival
Published 7:37 am Friday, May 8, 2020
- The Tirolean Dancers of Oregon perform one of their precise Alpine folk dances during Alpenfest at Wallowa Lake State Park. The annual event has been canceled for 2020 and is scheduled to return in 2021.
WALLOWA LAKE — Oregon’s Alpenfest, the West’s four-day festival of Alpine culture and cuisine, is canceling its 2020 festival and making preparations to bring the event back to in 2021.
Event organizers said the move is in keeping with Gov. Kate Brown’s latest regulations to keep Oregonians safe during the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced many major events in the state to be canceled or rescheduled.
“We already are working to reschedule Mollie B and Squeezebox,” said Chuck Anderson, Alpenfest’s Alpenmeister.
Alpenfest had succeeded in booking the band, named 2019 Band of the Year by the International Polka Association, after a five-year stretch of schedule conflicts. Squeezebox usually plays more than 100 dates a year but has canceled or rescheduled dozens of them because of COVID-19 restrictions.
“We made our decision as soon as Gov. Brown announced that no concerts or festivals would take place through September,” Anderson said. “We, of course, want our attendees to stay healthy and we are honoring the governor’s actions.”
Alpenfest had been scheduled for Sept. 24-28.
This would have been the 43rd edition of the festival. It was started in 1975 by businesses at the south end of Wallowa Lake and ran through 2008. Joseph and lake businesses revived it in its current three-community format in 2012.
