Board will voteon gathering

Following Thursday’s announcement that Fiesta Days’ September festivities would be canceled due to rising COVID-19 cases and the more transmissible delta variant, Vacaville residents’ eyes are likely on where things stand with the next big community event: Merriment on Main.

Jennifer Hamilton, second vice president of the Merriment on Main Board of Directors, said board members are still keeping their fingers crossed but will vote at the end of September on whether to move forward with the annual holiday gathering or to cancel it but still have a decorated and lit Christmas tree at the Three Flags Monument, as it did last year.

Either way, the tree is going up.

“We feel like the end of September is enough time to see if maybe this current surge is gonna dissipate,” she said.

After being canceled for the first time in its 38year history due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, event organizers announced back in June that the annual festival would return the Tuesday after Thanksgiving after learning it would be permitted under state and county guidelines.

At the time, the state had loosened its restrictions on large public gatherings. However, a current increase in cases and hospitalizations statewide has caused many concerns among organizers. Hamilton said the event draws up to 10,000 attendees, and with many different entry points and a lack of ticketing, enforcement of mask wearing is going to be very difficult.

“We really just don’t have the ability to regulate mask wearing with a crowd that size,” she said.

Hamilton also said she shares several of the same worries as the Fiesta Days organizers.

“It’s a family event,” she said. “There’s a massive number of people.”

Hamilton said she did think she would be in the same position a year ago.

“I really had optimistic hopes last year that, by this time, we would have been able to deal with this pandemic in a way to where we could get back to gathering together for an event like this,” she said.

However, Hamilton said that it will ultimately come down to what the board decides in September.

“We are hoping for some type of turnaround,” she said. “We’re just taking it day by day.”

Even with the lack of a gathering last year, the tree was still delivered from its usual venue of Carlton Christmas Trees in Burney, and it remained in its usual location at the intersection of Davis and Main streets, even being decorated and lit. No matter what the board decides, Hamilton said this will still happen this year.

Updates on Merriment on Main this year will be posted to Merrimentonmain.org and Facebook. com/merrimentonmainvacaville.