Arts Wells has been postponed

Island Mountain Arts has had to make the difficult decision of postponing the Arts Wells Festival that was set to take place over the long weekend.

Executive Director Elyssia Sasaki says it was made in consultation with the District of Wells and the BC Wildfire Service.

“I think there were a lot of factors that went into it but ultimately it was the uncertainty around going back onto Evacuation Alert, and what an evacuation alert kind of means in the context of the community and hosting an additional 600 to a thousand people.”

Sasaki says they will lose some money that they have already spent.

“Yes absolutely. It’s hard to say right now what the overall impact is going to be. For example we have a thousand programs that are half printed and that is something that we’ll definitely honour. We’re going through the process of what refunds look like for the organization right now, so it’s really hard to say what it looks like at the moment.”

Sasaki says it is also too early to say when they will reschedule the event for.

“I think we’re still definitely focused on day to day here, and what the immediate needs of our community are, and what recovery looks like. It’s definitely too early for specific dates or anything like that around what rescheduling the event looks like. All I can say is we put a lot of work into this year and we’re definitely committed to figuring out how it can work in the future to hold a festival here.”

Sasaki says she is grateful that they were able to return to Wells and she thanks the fire fighters and the BC Wildfire Service for that.

She also encourages people to support Wells.

“I think the biggest thing that’s important for folks to remember, especially folks who are local and around the Cariboo, is that this is just one weekend out of the year and Wells is here every weekend during the year. I think it’s really important that as things open up again people come support the community, and the people who are doing things here year round and who are running their businesses and building experiences.”