Coronavirus concerns are leading to the near total shutdown of Yellowknife's two winter festivals.
The Snowking's Winter Festival after tonight (March 13) will be shutting down all of its evening indoor events until further notice.
The Long John Jamboree board of directors also announced Friday night in a news release that it is "suspend(ing) the 2020 Long John Jamboree."
"The Board of Directors of the Long John Jamboree has made the difficult decision to suspend the 2020 Long John Jamboree," stated the news release. "This decision did not come lightly however it was made due to circumstances beyond our control with the COVID-19 issue."
Earlier this week, Yellowknifer reported there were no plans to cancel planned festivities with both festivals. Snowking made a video presentation late Friday.
Laura "LaurFrost" Busch, media spokesperson for the Snowking festival said the Frozen Blues: Tri-Continental scheduled Friday night will be the last nighttime musical act due to a recommendation from the office of Dr. Kami Kandola, chief public medical officer late Friday afternoon.
"We were in touch with the office of the chief public officer late this afternoon and we were advised that they recommend that we cancel all indoor events and that includes all nighttime events until further notice," she said.
"It was the close proximity of people and the fact that we are an event with no running water that is operating off of hand sanitizer and limited sanitation measures. They're concerned about the crowding that happens inside the Great Hall during nighttime events."
Busch said it is uncertain as to when or if the festival will be cancelled altogether and early this year, although as of Friday, daytime events were still allowed.
"As of right now - and it is something that seems to be changing day to day - the castle remains open during the day time and so it is too soon to say exactly where we will end the festival," she said.
The festival did not protest the decision and fully co-operated and respected the decision, she added.
"It wasn't the news that we were hoping for, but we have been clear from the get-go that we are committed to following the recommendation from our public health experts," she said.
Tri-Continental Blues
The Tri-Continental blues act was limited in its presale of tickets events as the festival team stopped selling when they learned of the cancellation at 3 p.m. on Friday.
"Once the dust settled, we did get clearance to go ahead with a maximum of 100 people in the Great Hall tonight, which is more than the amount of tickets that we have sold," she said. "So we are honouring the tickets that we sold and anyone who has not bought a ticket, unfortunately they are not able to come."
Busch added that the festival's working capacity for people attending night time events is 250.
The festival had been aiming to livestream the show on its webpage and Facebook page. for those who can't attend, Busch said.
Royal Ball
One of the festival's annual staple events, the Royal Ball, which was scheduled for this Saturday, is cancelled as a result. This year's featured band, the Swingin' Pines from the Yukon, who up to today had been advertised, have been told not to fly to Yellowknife.
"The Swingin' Pines were still in Whitehorse and we told them not to come," Busch said.
Since the Snowking festival started there have been seven nighttime events - not exclusively musical acts - as the Dead North Film Festival took place on March 3. Each music night have had two bands scheduled and there have been to date two weekends with full day music programming.
For the remainder of the festival, there are eight nighttime acts that include the King's Comedy Night with Loren McGinnis, scheduled for March 26.
Snowking Festival 2019
The recent setback followed a festival season last year that ended early due to unseasonably warm temperatures. Snowking announced closed the event on March 24, ahead of the planned March 31.
Busch said it is hard to say if the festival has suffered significantly financially after the closure last year and the potential cancellation of the festival this year.
"I would like to say that Snowking has asked everyone not to be too sad and to not start a donation campaign and that we will be okay," she said.