Steubenville summer fair, festival season remains up in air amid coronavirus pandemic

STEUBENVILLE -- The start of the city's summer concert series is going to be delayed and its schedule likely will be condensed into fewer shows, and Holy Trinity's Greek Festival has been shortened to three days and moved to October.

And, while no decision has been made about the Dean Martin Festival, organizers say it's not looking good.

"I'm not sure what we're going to do yet," organizer JoJo DiAlbert said, though admitting the longer the COVID-19 social distancing or stay-at-home orders remain in effect, the more likely they'll have to at least delay the fan-favorite if not cancel it altogether.

"The thing I'm worried about is if this clears up, are people still going to (be willing) to travel?" DiAlbert said. "Are they going to (want to) be in a (crowd)?"

Organizers already had at least one major change up their sleeve, even before the coronavirus pandemic: The Steubenville Visitor Center and the Martin festival committee decided weeks ago to join forces and throw one big, three-day party on South Fourth Street between Adams Street and Steve's Fish and Chips, which meant there wouldn't be a separate Hometown Celebration anymore at Historic Fort Steuben.

"How much social distancing we have to abide by in the month of June will predicate how it goes," said Jerry Barilla, president of the Steubenville Visitor Center and Historic Fort Steuben. "We've always done the Dean Martin Festival in collaboration with Father's Day. I don't know if we would entertain moving it to another day or not -- we haven't been able to talk with JoJo yet."

Barilla said they'd already canceled the fort's annual dinner, which had been scheduled for May 8. The summer concert series, supposed to begin May 27, has "tentatively been moved to the middle of the month of June." And, instead of 11 concerts, "We're trying to pare the number down to six or seven."

He said they're reaching out to the bands they'd booked to see if they can readjust their schedules.

"It's not only having to delay the concerts, but funding for (them)," he said. "We naturally need (a certain amount of ) dollars to put concerts on. Since this (pandemic) happened, sponsorship has been limited so we need to adjust the schedule to fit the budget."

He said Frontier Days (June 1-2) is currently still on, but it's a smaller, open-air event geared to locals, "so we're hoping it can go forward, as long as we can get re-enactors and vendors to come."

"I think we'll know more when we get into the first of May, whether we're still going to be locked down, quarantined at home," he said. "If that happens in May, June (events) will be a little suspect. But I think it would be wonderful if we could have these (events). It would be wonderful if we could have all these events, I think people are wanting to be out and have something to do after being (cooped up) so long."

Holy Trinity, meanwhile, decided to move its annual Greek Festival Oct. 7-9.

"It's a sad reality we had to come to," said Angela Mastros, committee co-chair. "We have so many restrictions on us, even being at church to help with the preparations. We don't know how long it's going to go on, so it's just prudent to put things off to fall. Most of the churches in our Metropolis (which includes Pittsburgh as well as some churches in Ohio and West Virginia) are doing the same thing. It's very disappointing - but too many hours need to be spent cooking, we're not even allowed in the building."

And this year, the festival will be three days instead of the traditional four-day street party.

"Fall is a busy time of year, there are a lot of activities going on," Mastros said. "People will be working, teachers won't be off, so we're going to try it and see how it goes. We've had many festivals in the past that were only one day, so we decided to try a three-day fall fest and see how it's received in the community. We're going to scale the menu back a little, just because we don't know when we can get into the church. We're planning on having the band, most of the members are local, but most likely we won't have vendors this year."

Committee member Rikki Kamarados said there just wouldn't be enough time to plan properly or "finishing prepping the things that need to be prepped."

"It was very hard (to postpone) it," Kamarados said. "But we figured it was best to do it so people can make plans. It's hard, because the teachers, college students and high school students who usually help us won't be around as much in the fall. But it's also very easy to do, because you have to worry about the health of everybody -- that includes our parishioners, making sure they're all safe before we start gathering again. Even our church services are online now. We're worried about everybody's health, so this is the best way to do it."

Mastros said social distancing goes against the Greek tradition of welcoming people into their homes and church. "It's a big part of what we do and how we give back," she said. "and it's kind of been brought to a halt."