Montana Irish Festival Cancelled For Second Year In A Row

2020 was a strange time, where we saw just about every major event get cancelled due to COVID concerns and precautions. But I think you could argue that, in some ways, 2021 is an even stranger time - because now, it's sort of a mix. We're starting to see concert announcements, restrictions are being lifted, and live events are making a comeback... but we're also still seeing stuff postponed or cancelled. It's sometimes weird to look at some of these events and think, "Wait, why is this one happening but not this one?"

At this point, it largely comes down to the organization running the event and how much a risk they're willing to take, and we've now got news of another event cancellation in Montana. For the second year in a row, the An Ri Ra Irish Festival in Butte has announced its cancellation.

It's honestly not surprising to me anymore when something gets cancelled because we were hit with so many of these kinds of announcements over the past year, but it is a bit of a bummer that they felt they couldn't do a safe, socially-distanced version of the festival for 2021. But, since thousands of people tend to come to An Ri Ra every year, that might have been pretty difficult.

With more and more people getting the vaccine every day, hopefully we'll be in a place next year where all these cancellations feel like a distant memory. I'm sure the attendees of the 2022 An Ri Ra festival will be excited to have it back.