PENDLETON — Closing down Main Street for an outdoor event, but trying to do it during the COVID-19 pandemic, has proven to be difficult.

After spending the past two Saturdays organizing “Music on Main,” a series of block parties with outdoor dining and live music, the Pendleton Downtown Association announced late Wednesday, June 24, that it was postponing the events indefinitely, citing “rising numbers of COVID cases and increased concerns from downtown businesses.”

In a series of interviews ahead of the association’s June 24 decision, organizers and a participating business owner were quick to acknowledge the challenge of trying to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission in mass gatherings while trying to stoke economic activity in a downtown area that’s just starting to emerge from a hibernation period spurred by the state’s stay-home orders.

Downtown Association Executive Director Wesley Murack didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the Music on Main postponement, but in a June 22 interview, he explained how the event had already been scaled down multiple times by the time it held its first event on June 13.

The association’s original vision was to close the main drag of Main Street to vehicles to allow restaurants to expand their outdoor dining options. With restaurants required to operate at a reduced capacity, Murack said more outdoor dining space would allow for more customers while still respecting social distancing.

To address some business concerns, the association restricted the concept to the weekend, and when the nonprofit couldn’t get enough participation to close the entirety of Main Street, the group chose to focus on specific segments with the partnership of specific restaurants.

When Music on Main launched on the 400 block of Main on June 13, it was further bolstered from a tourism promotion campaign with Boutique Air, the airline that provides daily flights between Pendleton and Portland. The campaign even came with a slogan: “Portland is Weird, Pendleton is Open: Eastern Oregon, the Birthplace of Social Distancing.”

Murack said the block parties were modestly attended, but the first block party did result in a sales bump for the Great Pacific Wine & Coffee Co.

Great Pacific Manager Addison Schulberg was quick to praise Murack, saying he was “dialed in” when implementing social distancing at the event, later adding that he had put his “heart and his soul into this town,” and its businesses.

But the increase in customers created a long line from the counter, Schulberg said, making it difficult to encourage patrons to observe social distancing.

Great Pacific has been intentionally slow to reopen its in-person services despite the state’s loosening regulations, and Schulberg said the restaurant’s top priority during the pandemic has been to operate responsibly without furthering the spread of the virus. Given the massive coronavirus outbreak in neighboring Union County and the uptick in cases locally, Schulberg said Great Pacific would likely have to “bow out” if the restaurant was asked to participate again.

The state and country had been seeing a significant uptick in COVID-19 cases as well when Murack announced that it was suspending the tourism promotion campaign with Boutique until the “situation is under control again.”

But the association still wanted to cater to locals with the second block party, which took place on Main’s 100 block while partnering with Virgil’s at Cimmiyotti’s.

Listed as one of the sponsors, Pendleton Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Cheri Rosenberg said the chamber has acted in a support role for Music on Main.

While saying it was “asinine” not to have concerns about bringing together people for an event during the pandemic, Rosenberg said residents need to be able to see each other in person again after months of quarantine in addition to all the businesses that need customers after the shutdown.

But the second event didn’t stop Music on Main from losing another sponsor this week.

Oregon East Symphony had originally been a sponsor of the downtown event and was using residual grant funds intended for concert production to help fund musicians before choosing to “withdraw” participation last week, OES executive director J.D Kindle said.

“We’re still, in general, supportive of the efforts to stimulate the local downtown economy,” he said. “We just decided that we are going to temporarily withdraw participating for now due to COVID concerns.”

Kindle said he had been hearing concerns about participating from musicians last week leading up to the decision to cease sponsorship of the event.

“Last week, with the consistent double-digit increases in COVID in Umatilla County it was just kind of putting everyone on edge within OES,” he said. “We decided that it would be best to withdraw participating until conditions are more favorable.”

Despite withdrawing participation from the event, Kindle said the symphony would be open to sponsoring musicians for the event when conditions improve.

“If other people want to go ahead and continue participating in the activity I guess they are free to, because we are under Phase 2,” said Kindle. “It’s just our choice to hold off for the moment.”

The downtown association would decide to hold off on further block parties that same day, adding it was “extremely grateful” to those who allowed organizers to close down a section of Main Street for a few hours to promote local businesses.

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East Oregonian Reporter Ben Lonergan contributed to this report.