A popular electronic music and camping festival will not happen this year based on input from state and local authorities.
The Rothbury Village Council voted on April 9 to deny the Electric Forest Festival to reschedule their festival dates amid the coronavirus outbreak. The festival was scheduled to take place from June 25 to June 28.
Electric Forest organizers had planned to work on finding alternative dates, however, on Tuesday morning they announced the postponement of the festival's tenth year celebration. Festival organizers say the event had sold out within an hour of tickets going on public sale in December. The celebration has now been postponed to 2021.
Rusty Morningstar, owner of the restaurant Bone Ends in Whitehall, was crushed to hear about the cancellation. The festival is a major source of income for his business each year.
“This was one I was kind of hoping was going to hold out a little bit longer," says Morningstar. "We fully understand what’s going on, it just, it hurts.”
During last year’s festival, Morningstar says his sales saw a 75% increase each day of the festival. With so many new people in town for the event, he sold more food than the restaurant ever had before.
"We had two deliveries from our food vendors twice in the week," explains Morningstar. "And we actually had to go and shop to pick up stuff because we were running out of food in between.”
With his restaurant barely turning a profit as it is during the pandemic and now the festival’s cancellation, he hopes he and his fellow business owners can stay above water.
“All of the restaurant owners will just talk to each other, they’ll come in or I’ll go there, and we just say the same thing I think we keep saying to each other," says Morningstar. "We just keep fighting every day, keep your head up. Hopefully this passes.”
Ticket holders will be offered the option to receive a refund or to retain their tickets, which will be honored at the 2021 Decade One celebration.
This is one of a number of Michigan festivals that will not happen in 2020 due to the pandemic, including the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City, Blissfest Music Festival in Petoskey and Tulip Time in Holland.
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