Old Orchard Beach Scottish Festival canceled

OLD ORCHARD BEACH — Local Community group OOB365 announced that it has canceled the Scottish Festival.

The Scottish Festival, held at Veterans Memorial Park, has been a popular annual event in Old Orchard Beach for several years and attracts both locals and people from out of town. Highlights of the festival typically include Scottish dancing, Highland games, bag pipers, food and artisans.

This year’s festival had been scheduled for June 6. The state is currently following social distancing practices to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Following the guidelines from an executive order issued by Governor Janet Mills on Monday, gatherings would be limited to 50 people in June, and people traveling into Maine from out of state would need to self-quarantine for 14 days.

“It is with heaviness that we are cancelling the Scottish Festival in Old Orchard Beach. The governor of the state of Maine has implemented rules that do not allow for any gatherings of the people. We were in high hopes that with our community and state following the strict stay home, stay safe orders that we would have tempered this beast of a virus and our festival and summer would be okay. We want to thank all of you who have been fans of our festival and we will miss seeing our fantastic bands and vendors this year,” wrote event organizers on a Facebook post on Wednesday.

OOB365 intends on resuming the festival in June 2021, according to the Facebook post.