It’s been two years since the Petersburg Arts Council presented a visiting musician.
Royal Wood was supposed to tour Alaska last November but the pandemic postponed that to this year.
Wood will perform Tuesday, November 2, in Petersburg. For the show, the arts council is following the general guidelines from the State and Centers for Disease Control for events and gatherings. As of Friday the council announced it would be requiring masking during the event. It will also require proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of admission. This is a change from the original measures planned for the event when COVID-19 case numbers dropped to single digits in the middle of October. As of Tuesday, November 2, the Petersburg Medical Center reported 30 active cases.
The arts council expects there to be enough room in the auditorium for people to spread out if they want to.
Mark Kubo helps facilitate getting visiting musicians to town for the council. In that role, he attended a conference in Washington this year to look for touring musicians. He says at that event it was clear that it had been a long time since everyone’s last live performance.
“A number of the artists who were there performing in person, they got to the stage and their comment was, “Oh, wow, real life people!” Exclamation,” Kubo said. “It think for all of us it was a little bit of an emotional experience seeing that, you know, the arts would continue. Bringing together of people from different walks of life all into a single venue at least for 60 minutes to maybe two hours, just experiencing something altogether, I think is something that virtual streaming or something you see on the screen cannot ever replace.”
There will not be an intermission at the show, just one long set.
Here is KFSK’s interview with Royal Wood.
(TUESDAY: This story has been updated with increased mitigation measures and to show the increase in COVID case numbers.)
