By Taylor Wooten
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The annual Harvest Moon Fall Festival in Bargersville won’t happen this year.
The festival was canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the effects of the pandemic are still felt through the current heavy demand and shortages, said Laura Kennedy, the town’s spokesperson.
Usually on the third Saturday of September, the event will not happen this year because the town of Bargersville had issues finding vendors and music acts. As a result, the town decided to postpone the festival, Kennedy said.
“At this time, we’re a little uncomfortable with being able to get a number of vendors to commit that we would normally have for that,” Kim Dinwiddie, a human resources consultant, said last week during a town council meeting.
The Harvest Moon Fall Festival would also be competing for attention. Home-A-Rama, an annual home show in the Indianapolis area, is also hosting an event that weekend in Bargersville. Mallow Run Winery is also having a concert that Saturday evening. Those events made it more difficult to find vendors and music acts, Dinwiddie said.
“It will be a busy weekend in general. Whether or not we also want to be having an event that night is basically the question here, for us,” she said.
“We were really getting some momentum with it before COVID,” council member Ruth Moore said. “I’d hate to just have a really bad one and that turns people away.”
Event planning for the town was also complicated by the hiring of a new community development coordinator.
Instead, the town and new community development coordinator will set their sights on getting vendors and music acts prepared for the 2022 festival, Kennedy said.
The town’s annual Halloween event, Trunk or Treat at Town Hall, is also a priority, the town council said.
The Harvest Moon Fall Festival typically lasts 10-12 hours, and includes a parade, music acts and vendors lining Main Street.
