Discover Lansdale Cancels Founders Day, July and August First Fridays

Bruce Schwartz•

Discover Lansdale has announced three more cancellations from their 2020 lineup of events, including Founders Day and the July and August First Friday festivals.

"After significant consideration, we have made the difficult decision to cancel this year’s Founders Day festivities,” reads the statement from Discover Lansdale. "Despite the impact we know this decision will have, the uncertainty of how to hold the event safely and the number of volunteers and the amount of planning involved, as well as doubts on who would attend, have led us to make this disappointing announcement.”

The cancellation of Founders Day also means there will be no fireworks display at Memorial Park

"Though we are devastated that this summer will not close with a bang from Founders Day fireworks, we are also deeply saddened that we will not be able to promote many of the local businesses that benefit from the 10,000-plus people that come to town on Founders Day,” Discover Lansdale officials said.

The news was no better for residents hoping that a portion of the 2020 First Friday season could be salvaged, as Discover Lansdale First Friday Committee Chairman Keith Heffintrayer officially cancelled the July and August events, and offered little hope for the rest of the 2020 schedule.

"When we cancelled May and June, we initially had hope for squeezing in some events later in the season,” Heffintrayer said. "With the guidance we have now—a green phase prohibition of street festivals and a crowd size limit of 250 people—there’s simply no way we could attempt to host an event while remaining compliant to those regulations, let alone while also enforcing masking and social distancing.”

While three other events still remain on the First Friday schedule—a First Friday in September, the Lansdale Zombie Walk in October and a "Last Friday” season finale just before Halloween—Heffintrayer said its likely that he’ll have to cancel them all in the coming weeks.

"I know there are some who would like us to push forward with these events, and I had hoped that we could salvage some things and provide the community with a few summer evenings of normalcy, but ultimately, the risk is too great,” said Heffintrayer. "It’s unlikely at this point that we’ll be able to squeeze in any late-season events, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

The canceled festivals now join a growing list of annual Lansdale Borough events that were forced to shut down by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This month alone saw the cancellation of Lansdale Day. Fairmount Fire Company’s Under the Lights Car Show, the Lansdale Beer Tasting Festival and June First Friday.

Despite the cancellations, Discover Lansdale officials continue to encourage residents and visitors to patronize the borough’s local businesses, especially those that were impacted by the stay-at-home order.

"The most important thing that all of us can do is focus our attention on helping our community with the new challenges we all face,” officials said. "We promise that Founders Day will be back bigger and better in 2021, and we look forward to bringing you the uniquely Lansdale events you are accustomed to.”

(Editor's note: North Penn Now Associate Editor Bruce Schwartz is also a board member of Discover Lansdale.)