The 33rd annual Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival is being postponed until 2021, according to festival chairman Melvita Tillis Presley.
Presley said the decision was reached over the weekend via a telephone conference with members of the festival’s executive board.
She said the decision reflects the board’s concern over Mississippi’s current spike of virus cases and the Sunflower’s compliance with social distancing guidelines.
Event organizers said in early 2019 that it cost approximately $70,000 each year for organizers to put together the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival each August in downtown Clarksdale.
In the fall of 2019 more than 38 bands were booked to perform on the Sunflower’s Main Stage and eight acoustic stages in air-conditioned clubs and restaurants, according to Maie Smith, booking chairman. And as always, Gospel music was celebrated Sunday afternoon and evening in the Civic Auditorium.
For decades the Sunflower has been supported in part by the Mississippi Arts Commission. It was founded in 1988 by Jim O’Neal, co-founding editor of LIVING BLUES magazine and research director for the Mississippi Blues Trail and Dr. Patricia Johnson.
