Clearwater Festival not happening in 2020
The annual Clearwater Festival, which raises money for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and celebrates late founder Pete Seeger, is taking the year off in 2020, Billboard reports. Instead of a full scale music festival, a two-day, 500-capacity “Clearwater Community Celebration” will be held in a smaller section of Croton Point Park on Father’s Day weekend, June 20-21.
The decision to downsize the event for 2020 came after the festival lost over $100,000 in 2019. “The Great Hudson River Revival was a major success last year, in that thousands of people joined us to celebrate the Hudson River through music, dance, volunteerism, education and activism,” Clearwater executive director Greg Williams told Billboard. “Due to many factors, including a wet weather forecast and rain on Sunday causing low attendance, the festival suffered a financial loss of approximately $190,000. Since June, we have been working to keep the organization stable, while paying down our debt to festival vendors, and we are grateful for their patience. It would be irresponsible of Clearwater to move forward with replicating another million-dollar Clearwater Festival in 2020 without having addressed the financial loss we incurred in 2019. We expect these steps, with the public’s ongoing support, will put us in the best position to return with the Revival in 2021.”
Details are still to be announced for the Clearwater Community Celebration, but organizers told Billboard it would include “unity, action, education, food, music, crafts and merrymaking”
