Organizers reflect on 2020 Blueberry Festival

Tim Brody - Editor

Sioux Lookout’s 38th Annual Blueberry Festival is in the books and organizers say despite being a scaled down festival compared to previous years, it was no less successful.
“I think it went really well,” shared Festival Coordinator Jessica Darling. “We’re really happy with the turnout to a lot of the events and we’re really grateful for all the event organizers who stepped up to bring something to the festival this year, since it was definitely tougher than normal.”
This year’s Blueberry Festival, which ran from July 31 to August 9, featured 60 events, half of what it boasted in 2019.
“It was nice to see, as Jessica stated, the event organizers stepping outside of the box to be really creative,” added Blueberry Festival Committee President Dori Hopko.
“There were a lot of events online that were extremely successful compared to previous years hosting them in person,” she said, commenting, “Myself, I watched the whole Sioux Mountain Music Festival… it was awesome.”
Asked about adjusting the festival to take place during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hopko said, “I think we had to come up with some creative ideas to support the event organizers, giving them different suggestions how they could rework their events. Ourselves as a committee, we did the drive-through opening ceremonies, which was extremely successful. Drive-through Bert’s Birthday Party, we had 110 cars. We were so excited and the kids were just as excited. Rotary did their drive-through (pancake breakfast). I understand they sold over 300 plates of pancakes. So that was really successful. The (Sioux Lookout) Skating Club hosted the drive-through fish fry, sold out I think within an hour. It was awesome!”
Hopko shared, “We did take a bit of flak when we posted it out there to get an idea of what event organizers were willing to do or not to do. But the feedback right now is people are very grateful that we stepped outside of the box and we made it happen. It was watered down from previous years, but look out people, next year is going to be bigger and better!”
Darling said feedback regarding the festival has been positive, “We have a survey out right now that people can find on our Facebook page. So far we’ve gotten a lot of positive reviews saying, ‘good job, you did what you could.’ Most of them seemed to be really glad we did something. Obviously we can’t take credit for most of the events on the schedule, but I think everyone did a really great job considering the circumstances.”
“We’d like to thank the community for supporting us and making this a very good festival. Thank you for the support buying the t-shirts and the sunglasses so that we could have funding available for next year’s festival,” Hopko commented.
Darling said t-shirt sales were quite successful and will play an important role in funding next year’s festival, slated to run from July 30 to August 8, “It was very successful. We were a little bit worried at the beginning, but we’re almost sold out now. We only have a few left on our shelves, so really thankful for everyone who bought a t-shirt.”