Bowiefest Canceled Second Year In A Row Due To COVID-19 Pandemic

BOWIE, MD — The city of Bowie’s annual Bowiefest is canceled for the second year in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic. The event was scheduled to take place at Allen Pond Park this Saturday, June 5.

Matt Corley, special events manager for the city of Bowie, explained the cancellation of Bowiefest was based on the state of the pandemic in February.

“The [COVID-19 case] numbers were still high,” Corley said. “We still had the county thing of no more than 50 people in any one space, and you have to have enough planning time to get these things off the ground when you’re doing three stages of entertainment, 200 and plus vendors, and shuttle buses and everything else, you need at least six months of planning on that.”

Although COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted in Prince George’s County and across the state of Maryland since then, Corley said there was not enough time to organize the event after the restrictions were lifted.

“When everything dropped where we could do something like this, there’s just not enough time to put a good program together,” Corley said.

Bowiefest typically attracts hundreds of Bowie residents the first Saturday of June for a day of games, food, entertainment and more. The festival invites multiple vendors and non-profit organizations to connect and share information about their companies.

Now that it has been two years since the last Bowiefest, many people and vendors miss connecting with one another. Bonnie Cowley, secretary of Washington New Church and School, said her church misses the opportunity to meet new people as a vendor each year.

Cowley said, “We will miss it, we have missed it. It’s been really useful. It’s a good way for us to get to know people — I definitely miss the community nature of it.”

Despite the cancellation of Bowiefest and Sunday sunset concerts for the summer, the city of Bowie plans to host their international festival in person this October, according to Corley.

Tune into Bowie TV Channels Comcast 71, 996, & Verizon 10 and the Bowie YouTube channel on Saturday, June 5 at 11 a.m. as the city of Bowie broadcasts past Bowiefest entertainment.