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Draper Journal

Draper Days canceled amid coronavirus concerns, budget woes

Jun 01, 2020 10:24AM ● By Stephanie Yrungaray

The 2020 Draper Days parade will not be held amid coronavirus concerns. (Photo courtesy of Draperdays.org)

By Stephanie Yrungaray | [email protected]

With a $380,000 price tag and attendees into the tens of thousands, concerns over both cost and coronavirus spread caused officials to cancel the 2020 Draper Days festival. 

“It wasn’t a decision that was made lightly,” said Robin McCulloch, president of the Draper Community Foundation. “It’s something we all love to do. We were saddened to see ourselves in this position but we didn’t have a lot of choice.” 

Draper Mayor Troy Walker said the festival is one of his favorite Draper events but fiscal considerations made it important to cancel the event earlier rather than later. 

“July 1 is the first day of our fiscal budget’s new year,” Walker said. “We don’t know the severity of the sales tax drop off because of the closing of so many businesses. A large chunk of our budget, more than half, comes from sales tax. We are trying to be prudent and not spend money on music contracts and other [Draper Days] contracts when we are not sure how we will come out.” 

McCulloch said Draper Days is entirely run by volunteers who start planning for the event as soon as the previous Draper Days festival ends. 

“The Draper Days Committee works on acts, fireworks, and all of the events that happen during the course of the week like the 5K race, the rodeo, and those types of things,” McCulloch said. “We sign contracts and from the start of the year in January we are full speed ahead until the event starts in July.” 

The committee is tentatively planning an event in the fall that won’t replace Draper Days but will hopefully celebrate the community’s successful reopening. 

“We are trying to plan a one night concert and fireworks show on a scaled-down version,” McCulloch said. “We are hoping conditions with the state and county will allow us to have that many people meet at that point and we are hoping to do it before it gets too cold. We will have to see what happens.” 

Draper residents will no doubt feel the absence of the event which is a treasured family tradition. But if all goes well, it should be back up and running in 2021. 

“We love to live here, we love the city and we love to see the community come together,” McCulloch said. “We will miss it this year but we will move forward and plan for it for next year.”