One of my favorite times of the year was upon us, the annual Arizona Renaissance Festival. With some new acts showing this year, plus all of my yearly traditions that I’ve come to love since I started going in 2017, I was ready to go back in time and enjoy the simple life.
Black Death, or the bubonic plague, was something that came up as a joke during the RenFest in years past, yet this year the joke was on us. Covid was just starting to take hold on the world stage.
As I make my way around the throngs of people, I can’t help but think about the unseen enemy that was in the air.
No one was the wiser until that fateful day in March whenever the entire country seemed to come to a standstill all at once.
I was torn about going to the Festival that March weekend, as Spring baseball had just been cancelled, the NCAA basketball tournament, and the NBA and music concerts. Backlash online for the Festival remaining open was split 50/50.
They opened Saturday, but I decided to play it safe and stay home. Sunday came and the the Festival announced that it was be closing for the remainder of the season.
I was sad, not so much for myself, but for the loss of income for the beautiful performers that rely on Festival dollars to survive.
Will the Festival return again? That question, just like so many others, is still a big unknown for those of us in plague survival mode…
