BALTIMORE — Hampdenfest street festival scheduled for next month has been canceled. Organizers say their permit application was denied and they were asked to change the date.
Organizers blamed the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts for rescheduling Artscape to September and negatively impacting other smaller events typically held that month.
The festival, originally scheduled for September 23, falls on the same weekend as Artscape.
In a blog post, Hampdenfest organizers say "Baltimore City said they don't have the resources to pull off Artscape and other events like ours."
They also said their target date was always September 23 but "after BOPA appeared to have a couple of misfires in its early planning stages of Artscape, we decided instead of canceling our festival earlier, we'd wait and see if Artscape was actually going to happen."
The post says several city officials signaled encouragement for the festival to happen on that date so they tried to get the permit.
Organizers say they worked through all possible alternatives but finally had to cancel this year's festival.
BOPA, interim CEO Todd Yuhanick, responded to the blog post and the festivals cancellation, saying, "We’re reaching out to the organizers of HampdenFest and understand their reasons for delaying this year’s event due to Artscape, and the several other events that will coincide with that weekend in September."
"We offer our full support to the organizers and stand ready to assist in any and every way when HampdenFest is eventually rescheduled. In the meantime, we invite all from this vibrant and iconic neighborhood to join us at Artscape."
