As over 15 new positive COVID-19 cases have been reported in Guthrie County over the past 10 days, Guthrie County Public Health is showing concern for a gathering expected to double the population of its county seat next weekend.
The organizers of the annual Guthrie River Ruckus music festival opted to postpone their three-day event to 2021, and instead are hosting a “River Ruckus Rumble” at the Guthrie County Fairgrounds. This includes a night of live music on Saturday July 25th with a lineup of local and regional country music acts, and a bags tournament and beer garden on the 24th. The organizers have set a 3,500 ticket cap, around one-fifth of the amount of typical festival goers, but Guthrie County Public Health Director Jotham Arber says they are closely monitoring the event as the COVID-19 threat remains, “Honestly, in a public health pandemic, having large events is risky and so we would definitely want to tell people if they choose to go to these events that they take some cautionary measures: wearing a face mask when they can’t social distance themselves, making sure to wash their hands often. Those are things that are going to be very important.”
River Ruckus organizer Grant Sheeder says his team has been in frequent contact with the state and Guthrie County Public Health departments, and he says Arber gave the event the green light, “He gave us the go ahead to go about and just do everything at full capacity, with being outdoors. And that’s more than a month ago but I don’t think things have really changed as long as we practice social distancing, promote that, along with more hand sanitizing stations. The people serving beer will have to wash their hands more often and that sort of stuff, just common sense stuff.”
Sheeder expects a little over 2,000 people to attend the scaled-down festival. Face masks won’t be required for the ticket holders nor staff, but he adds that the restroom and shower house facilities will be cleaned more frequently. Sheeder strongly advises anyone who may be experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or have been in contact with someone who has tested positive in the last 14 days to stay home.