DIXON – Organizing the Petunia Festival amid the ever-changing conditions of each stage during the COVID-19 recovery has taken more than a bit of razzle dazzle.
Jennifer Bubrick, president of the festival’s volunteer board, said it was more like trying to schedule several festivals at once, while picking up the pieces after the pandemic canceled last year’s event.
Yet, the members’ persistence paid off. The festival will kick off as scheduled.
“We had a year off,” says Bubrick. “We missed it. Now we’re back. And it’s like: ‘Time to get back into it.’”
The first official event will be 1 p.m. Wednesday when members of the Petunia royalty court will conduct a craft session at the Dixon Public Library.
Most of the events will be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The parade will be smaller – there were 30 entries at last count. Even so, there is a lot to look forward to. The musical performers are almost exclusively local acts. The carnival opens Thursday.
Some familiar favorites are back. Think Pink Craft Show. Family Fun Night. Dixon Municipal Band. The 5K Reagan Run. Pancake breakfasts.
There is even a new event, a photographic scavenger hunt. Bubrick encountered kids asking to take her photo, trying to get a head start on the search. “I don’t think it starts until the first,” she said, enforcing the rules. Even so, “they were all excited. People are talking about it.”
Running an annual festival requires muscle memory, of a sort. The year off took its toll.
“We’re taking it slow this year,” Bubrick says, promising to be back in full force in 2022. “We are being financially smart with our money, because we really took a hit last year. So we scaled back a lot.”
Enthusiasm for the festival hasn’t been diminished, she says. “The community is super excited. People stop me everywhere I go.”
Bubrick is hopeful the festival will serve as a homecoming, of sorts; as she says, “a chance to see Mom and Dad” after being locked down during the pandemic. Members of her own high school class from 1996 have inquired about getting together.
With the state in Phase 5 of the Restore Illinois plan, friends and families can make connections they haven’t been able to make until recently.
Getting to this point, however, was a chore. Each stage of the pandemic required a new plan for the festival. What events could be allowed? What restrictions had to be in place? Masks? Social distancing? What parameters could the carnival operate in?
Bubrick quickly lists them off: “We had a Bridge Phase plan. We had a Phase 5 plan. A Phase 3 plan. No matter what, we were going to do something.”
She pauses, thinking about the hours devoted to meeting Illinois Department of Public Health rules and restrictions each step of the way.
“We’ve become experts at IDPH guidelines.”
Throughout, the 10 members of the executive board and the 17 volunteer directors remained supportive and enthusiastic about the prospects for holding the festival. They met remotely, at first.
“They were at all the Zooms. Trying to cheerlead the whole way,” she says, ever grateful for the all-hands effort. “Everybody’s back together, saying: Let’s do this!”
In 15 years of working the festival, this was by far the most daunting effort. Bubrick was reminded of her first festival job, when she was a student at Northern Illinois University. She helped organize the Beanblossom music event, bringing music downtown.
“It was a catastrophe,” she admits. “I was a college student and Ed Lynott was like, ‘You have to go to the bars and get them on board and do this.’ I freaked out. Didn’t go to class that day. And we went from bar to bar to bar to make sure they were on board with having a band in the Beanblossom parking lot.”
Highlights
Wednesday
Crafts with royalty, 1 p.m., Dixon Public Library
Thursday
Carnival, 5 p.m. Dixon High School
Friday
Pancakes, 6 a.m., Dixon High School cafeteria
Spin, sculpt, stretch, sculpt classes and HIIT, 6:30 a.m., TwinBlend
Brush and Bloom, 9 a.m., Old Lee County Courthouse
Bingo at the Elks, 10 a.m.
Think Pink Craft Show, noon, Loveland Community Home
Carnival, 5 p.m., Dixon High School
Live entertainment, 5 p.m., Reagan and Stella stages
Family Fun Night, 5 p.m., Old Lee County Courthouse
Ice Cream Social, 5 p.m., Old Lee County Courthouse
Dixon Municipal Band, 7 p.m., Old Lee County Courthouse
Ultimate Air Dogs, Lincoln Statue Drive
Saturday
Pancakes, 6 a.m., Dixon High School cafeteria
Reagan Run, 8 a.m., Lowell Park
Blind Draw Volleyball, 8 a.m., Plum Hollow
Disc Golf Tournament, 9 a.m., Page Park
Think Pink Craft Show, 9 a.m., Loveland Community Home
Art in the Park, 9 a.m., John Dixon Park
Bingo at the Elks, 10 a.m.
Carnival, 1 p.m., Dixon High School
Live entertainment, 2 p.m.
Ultimate Air Dogs, Lincoln Statue Drive
Sunday
Pancakes, 6 a.m., Dixon High School cafeteria
Community Worship, 10 a.m., Main Stage Downtown
Carnival, 1 p.m., Dixon High School
Parade, 1 p.m., St. Mary’s School
Old Settlers Cabin, 3 p.m.
Live entertainment, 3 p.m.
50-50 drawing, 9:20, Stella Stage
Fireworks, 9:30 p.m.
Go to petuniafestival.org or find it on Facebook for the complete schedule.
Source: The Daily Chronicle
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