SAN ANTONIO – Fiesta San Antonio is canceled for 2020 after being pushed back to November from the originally scheduled dates in April. It is the first time the event has been canceled since World War II.
“It is with a heavy heart that we must announce Fiesta San Antonio will not take place in 2020,” officials said in a Facebook post.
See you April 15-25, 2021 for Fiesta 2021. For more information visit www.fiestasanantonio.org. Stay safe, San Antonio. #FiestaSanAntonio #Fiesta2021
Posted by Fiesta San Antonio on Friday, July 10, 2020
Officials said the COVID-19 pandemic was unlikely to subside by November. Cities around Texas are dealing with a surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said the cancellation was a “necessary decision.”
“I know San Antonians will be ready to make Fiesta 2021 the best ever,” he tweeted.
Officials are hoping next year’s Fiesta will happen as scheduled starting April 15, 2021.
Fiesta San Antonio, the city’s biggest annual event, is an 11-day party which generates more than $340 million in economic impact to the community.
Fiesta also gives more than 100 nonprofit organizations an opportunity to raise money through events and “many of them are able to raise their operating or programming budgets for the entire year through these events,” according to the Fiesta Commission.
San Antonio city officials announced March 13 that Fiesta would be postponed due the coronavirus pandemic and moved to Nov. 5-15.
Fiesta Oyster Bake announced in March that the event was canceled altogether despite the postponement to November but said the party would return next April for Fiesta 2021.
Since its introduction in 1891, Fiesta has been celebrated every year except 1918 during World War I and 1942-1945 during World War II, according to the Fiesta Commission.
At a news conference in March Mayor Ron Nirenberg said a “fall time frame was selected to provide enough time or the COVID-19 pandemic to subside. It’s a party with a purpose and the party will go on.”
The two-week event, one of the largest in the state, draws hundreds of thousands of people to downtown San Antonio, including the thousands of volunteers who work the more than 100 events.