June 12, 2020
Earlier this spring, we announced postponement of the 2020 Ohioana Book Festival from April 25 to August 29, in the hopes that the COVID-19 crisis would be in the process of passing and it would be safe to meet in large groups once again.
Unfortunately, as we’re sure you are all aware, this has proven to be an unprecedented, and lingering, health crisis. We have made the difficult decision at this time that the 2020 Ohioana Book Festival will not be presented as a live event. We are confident it is the correct direction to go, for the safety of everyone – authors, attendees, volunteers, and staff.
While we’re disappointed that we won’t be able to see you in person, we ARE excited and happy to tell you the Ohioana Book Festival WILL go on – as a virtual event.
The Ohioana staff has been working from home since March, during which we’ve been building up our virtual programs via Zoom, Facebook Live, etc. We’ve been happy with the wonderful response from both authors and attendees to these programs.
We’re working out details, but we can tell you our virtual festival will involve a variety of formats, including panel discussions on Zoom and other programs spread across all of our social media platforms. We feel it will be to our advantage not to hold it all on one day, so we plan to start on Friday, August 28 until Sunday August 30. We are also looking into the possibility of recording some things in advance to share before the official event as outreach, as we do every year. The Columbus Metropolitan Library will also still be involved in helping us to host and promote all of the virtual events.
At this time, we are exploring a lot of exciting ideas as to what a virtual festival will look like for us. As stated above, we are not entirely sure what format everything will fall into, but we anticipate author readings and some interviews in addition to panel discussions. We also do plan to have books for sale, as always.
Obviously this change is not our ideal. However, we are optimistic given the success of our newest virtual events as well as a number of book fairs and festivals that have already taken place online, that we can have a fun and dynamic virtual event to celebrate the literature and authors of Ohio in 2020.
Thank you all for your patience and understanding in this process. We hope that you are all safe and well, and look forward to seeing you – online – during the weekend of August 28-30! Please follow our social media accounts and check our website for more information soon.