Elk Grove’s Western Festival canceled again on COVID concerns, sponsorship struggles
Elk Grove Western Festival has been canceled again this year, one of the city’s enduring events falling victim to lingering coronavirus concerns and sponsorship struggles, the event’s organizer said Friday.
“It’s trying,” a disappointed Ken Johnston, the festival’s longtime organizer, said Friday of the decision weeks before the May festival date. “It takes a lot of planning, entertainment, sponsorships, and a lot of (sponsors) weren’t responding because of the virus and the economy,” Johnston said.
Johnston was eager for the Western Festival to return in 2022 after the ongoing pandemic and later talks with Elk Grove and Cosumnes Community Services District officials led to the canceling of the 2021 event.
But the ongoing pandemic “weighed on a lot of our members. We lost a couple to the virus,” he said. Those concerns were also felt outside the festival, impacting sponsorships and entertainment bookings, and forcing organizers to pull the plug on a 2022 event.
The Elk Grove Western Festival was born more than 60 years ago as an event to raise money for the city’s schools but had since grown into one of Elk Grove’s most popular events, drawing thousands of people to Elk Grove Regional Park
Now, Johnston says, this latest setback will give organizers time to take a new look at the decades-old event.
“We thought we’d take a step back, reinvent ourselves and come back with a better program,” he said.
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