Street Feast, PEI Marathon organizers hope the events will bring a sense of normalcy

Downed power lines, fallen trees and power outages in parts of Charlottetown present a tricky situation for event organizers who have decided to continue despite post-tropical storm Fiona.

Beyond the logistical challenges of staging a major event in a city still recovering from a disaster, organizers are balancing what local residents might think about holding festivals after the storm.

“We are very sensitive to what other people are going through and we recognize that this has been a really difficult time on all levels,” said Ellen Egan of Discover Charlottetown.

The group is hosting Street Feast, a block party on a section of Kent Street in downtown Charlottetown on Friday and Saturday. Restaurants, businesses and musical artists will occupy the block between Great George Street and Prince Street.

The event was originally scheduled for the same weekend as Fiona, but the organizers decided in advance to postpone the event based on the weather forecast.

After consultations with the City of Charlottetown and festival partners, Egan said they decided to hold the street party next weekend, hoping it would give people something to look forward to.

“After the two weeks, people are really looking for an opportunity to come out and have some normalcy after everything we’ve been through,” Egan said.

The PEI Marathon goes ahead with a modified course

It’s a similar story for the PEI Marathon weekend. October 14-16, which will see approximately 2,000 people line up for various races in Charlottetown.

About half of these people are expected from outside the province.

Race director Myrtle Jenkins-Smith said the board and committee have been meeting daily from Fiona to decide whether or not to continue with the race weekend.

“We discussed the pros and cons of moving forward, and wrestled with that for several days,” she said, adding that police and the city of Charlottetown were among those who have helped make the decision.

“We realized the best decision was to move forward once we found out we could have a very safe route.”

There are a few changes to the race weekend – the main one being the marathon course.

For the past 17 years, the marathon has started in Brackley Beach, PEI National Park, and runners have raced to the finish line in downtown Charlottetown.

But Fiona has caused extensive damage to the park, and large parts of it are closed to the public.

“It’s really quite a mess out there,” Jenkins-Smith said.

For this reason, marathon runners will depart from Charlottetown and run the half marathon course twice.

Jenkins-Smith said the weekend’s cancellation would have been devastating to the business community after such a tough few weeks.

“Difficult” situation for hotels

Hotel operators must balance guests who come to Charlottetown for events already scheduled and people who need a place to stay due to Fiona’s damage, including emergency crews who came to the island to help with power outages and cleanup, and Islanders who are still without power and looking for accommodation.

“It’s a difficult position,” said Dee Enright, director of sales and marketing at Rodd Hotels and Resorts.

“We never want anyone to leave when they want to stay.”

Some people had to leave one of their hotels to honor a contract he had with a national soccer tournament taking place in Charlottetown this week, she said. An event of this size would have been planned at least a year or more in advance, with 21 teams in Charlottetown to compete.

“We understand that we are sending you back under perhaps not ideal conditions,” Enright said.

“But as a hotel, that’s not something we can control – we have to stick to those contractual agreements.”

Hotel staff are doing what they can to accommodate everyone, she said, even going so far as to recommend other places to stay to anyone who had to leave.

Enright said some local and regional conferences have made the decision to cancel previously scheduled events and conferences because of Fiona.