After a prolonged pandemic hiatus, Kingston’s Buskers Rendezvous is back on.
Downtown Kingston is planning to hold the outdoor event at various locations this July.
“We’re planning as if everything is going to happen,” says Jan MacDonald, Downtown Kingston Events Director.
“It’s much easier to, a couple of months out, say, ‘No, we’re sorry, we can’t go ahead,’ than try to plan something very quickly.”
Downtown Kingston puts on the event and has for over three decades now.
Applications are now being accepted for performers as well as vendors for this year’s rendezvous, which takes place July 7-10.
“We have had applications from as far away as Australia and New Zealand from performers who were meant to come in 2020 and are hoping to come back this year,” says MacDonald.
“So as long as regulations allow, (we’ll) certainly accept them.”
“Lots of these signature events are year-long planning and I think it’s really important to remember that it’s easier to be nimble at the last minutes as it is at the fore,” adds Megan Knott, Tourism Kingston’s Executive Director.
Anyone attending the festival knows crowds are usually large and people are sometimes packed in like sardines, and that’ll most likely change.
“We’re hoping that once restrictions are lifted and the majority of people are vaccinated and hopefully the pandemic is somewhat behind us, that we will be able to gather in more of a crowd then we’ve been able to do the past two summers,” says MacDonald.
“So fingers crossed.”
The festival is a huge shot in the arm, financially.
MacDonald says before the pandemic, Buskers Rendezvous would pump about $2 million into the local economy.