LANCASTER − The severe flooding over the weekend has caused the Lancaster Festival to cancel all remaining events this week at the Wendel Concert Stage at Ohio University Lancaster.
The July 29 “A Night on Broadway” show, the July 30 Hairball hair metal tribute act and the Aug. 2 finale with Colbie Caillat and Dawes are all canceled. However, all the events at other local locations are still happening.
The festival is offering refunds for those events, along with the July 26 Gary LeVox show.
“It’s devastating, is what it is,” festival executive director Deb Connell said of the cancellations.
A Saturday storm at the LeVox show caused the evacuation of the concert site. Connell said the Sunday flooding is what caused this week’s cancellations.
“I’m kind of in shock,” she said. “I’m very happy that we got everybody out of the concert site on Saturday. But nobody expected a little short 15-minute shower with a little bit of lightening to turn into what it has. I’m very disappointed.”
Connell said it’s too early to say what the dollar amount of damage is because along with the regular festival expenses, there is now the cost of cleanup and repair.
The festival board in a Facebook post said production equipment, including lighting, sound and staging, is either damaged, destroyed or missing.
Connell said the devastation could jeopardize the festival’s future.
“It could,” Connell said. “Of course it could. Any organization that takes this type of devastating hit, both financially and physically, it’s hard to come back from. We’ll do everything that we can, but it is hard to come back from. We’re the festival. We’ll do it. But we’re going to need a lot of help to do it.”
Connell said she won’t know the festival’s future until everything is cleaned up and determined what needs to be replaced or repaired and what the condition of the festival site is. She said the site is covered in inches of mud now.
In order to help with the financial impact, ticket holders can choose to not request a refund and donate the ticket price to the festival. People can also donate money by contacting the festival in person at 117 W. Wheeling St. or by calling 740-687-4808 or by visiting the festival website at www.lancasterfestival.org.
“We want to do the right thing to the community by offering that refund because this is such an extraordinary event,” Connell said. “But the ticket money that we bring in is 50% of the budget that we run. It pays for all of the free things we do for the community, which luckily, those things are still able to go on this week.”
She said people can also support the festival by attending the events this week not at OUL. Connell also said the festival board is trying to possibly have a Lancaster Festival Orchestra concert somewhere on Saturday. However, those plans are not yet definite.
“We’re trying really hard to put that together so that we can all just be together and actually hear the orchestra and have a little bit of enjoyment and not all of the doom and gloom and mud,” Connell said.
She said eventually the board will need volunteers to help with the cleanup, but not yet.
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet,” Connell said. “It’s really hard to get into the site and get out. It’s extremely muddy so you can’t get vehicles in here. But we’re going to need a lot of help in the future in a lot of different ways − financial support, physical support and all that.”
Here are the instructions for getting refunds as posted on the festival’s Facebook page:
1. Pre-ordered beverages (including those not claimed before the evacuation on July 26) will be automatically refunded via method of payment used for purchase.
2. Refunds must be requested by midnight EST Aug. 31, 2025, via the form on the home page of www.lancasterfestival.org
3. Refunds will be issued for paid tickets only. Media comps, giveaways, employer comps, and other non-purchased tickets do not carry cash value, and therefore are non-refundable.
jbarron@gannett.com
740-681-4340
Twitter/X: @jeffrey_ba7142
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Flooding causes the Lancaster Festival to cancel all remaining events at OUL this week
Reporting by Jeff Barron, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette / Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
