Sandpoint SummerFest cancels 2020 season

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

Organizers for the annual music concert Sandpoint SummerFest confirmed July 8 that the event has been canceled for 2020 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

A ring of SummerFesters take a moment to celebrate good times. Courtesy Facebook.

“It comes with an extremely heavy heart that unfortunately, we have decided it isn’t socially responsible for us to hold any events in 2020,” wrote Steve Holt, executive director of Eureka Institute, which hosts the event.

“The Eureka Institute is about education and leadership,” Holt wrote in a statement first released in May. “Bringing people from all over the Northwest to the Eureka Center, potentially putting people’s lives at risk, is a situation we aren’t able to reconcile with our mission. We are sincerely sorry.”

This year would have been the 26th annual event, which was formerly known as JerryFest.

Robb Talbott with Mattox Farm Productions, who also helps with booking SummerFest acts, told the Reader that organizers are already working on next year’s event.

“We are moving forward with plans for next year and are looking forward to continuing this great Sandpoint tradition,” Talbott said.

“I want to convey again how difficult and painful this decision was,” Holt wrote. “However, in the end, I think it was the right decision for the right reasons.”