The 2021 Taylorsville Apple Festival has been canceled. Festival Director Gina Kay made the announcement on Tuesday and released the following statement:
It is with deep sadness, disappointment and regret that we announce the “Cancellation of the 32nd Annual Taylorsville Apple Festival on October 16th, 2021”!! It has taken several weeks of discussion and many hours of debate to come to this conclusion.
At the beginning of 2021 when we started to work on the Taylorsville Apple Festival, we did so with the hope that we would be in a better place this Fall with the COVID-19 epidemic due to the vaccines that were available to all but sadly we are not. With only 37% of our Alexander County citizens fully vaccinated, the Delta variant continues to spread rapidly in our community. Many of the area hospitals are filled to capacity.
We have sought guidance from Leeanne Whisnant Director of Alexander County Public Health, Doug Gillispie Director of Alexander County Public Services, and input from our Alexander County COVID-19 Team. With the massive crowds that we are blessed with each year, there would be no way that we could provide adequate space for social distancing to keep everyone safe. So….we have come to the conclusion that cancelling the Apple Festival is in the best interest of the health, safety and welfare of our citizens, the visitors from all of our surrounding communities and all of our vendors who travel from far and wide to be with us each year.
We have taken the last several weeks to reach out to vendors and entertainment personally to let you know before releasing this announcement to the masses. We hope you know that we are grateful for your faithful participation each year that helps us to be a successful event and raise monies for the Needy Children’s Benevolence Fund.
We pray that each of our beloved vendors, friends of the festival and all of our patrons stay healthy and safe until we meet together again in 2022 for the 32nd Annual Taylorsville Apple Festival !!!
Gina Kay