Changes coming to this year's Mount Dora Arts Festival

Changes coming to this year’s Mount Dora Arts Festival

The 46th annual Mount Dora Arts Festival will be held this weekend, but they are definitely changes this year to make sure everyone is safe during Cove.

MOUNT DORA, Fla. - The 46th annual Mount Dora Arts Festival will be held this weekend.

The streets of Downtown Mount Dora are usually packed for the festival. Things will be a whole lot different this year.

"Normally, it takes up all the streets and all the beautiful colors and our concern is that it’s going to be smaller," Alan Stapleton of Mount Dora said.

The festival will be much smaller this year because of the pandemic. The two-day event normally brings in a few hundred thousand people and features three hundred artists.

"This year, we have about 130 artists," Mount Dora Center for the Arts Program Director Krysta Smith said. "We’re not anticipating the same number of crowd."

Not only will the event be scaled back, but booths will be placed 10 feet apart, food vendors will be in a separate area and masks are required.

The Mount Dora Center for the Arts hosts the event. Staff said it will give local artists a boost.

"To support who have been struggling over the past year and to support the arts in Lake County," Smith said.
People around town are happy about that, too.

"I think all the things they do for the city and the income that it brings is great," Robin Douglas of Mount Dora said.

The festival is on Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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