MARION — The 2020 edition of the Marion Popcorn Festival has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A news release stated:

To our Visitors, Sponsors, Vendors and Friends:

After careful thought and deliberation, The Board of Trustees of the Marion Popcorn Festival announces the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 festival, originally scheduled for September 10, 11 and 12 in downtown Marion, Ohio.

For 39 consecutive years, downtown Marion has welcomed the Marion Popcorn Festival the weekend after Labor Day. We have seen hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to Marion, Ohio for the world’s largest Popcorn Festival and enjoy all of their favorite food, crafts, rides and free National Headline Entertainment.

In planning a completely safe event for visitors and volunteers while complying with all the restrictions of crowd size and social distancing, safety with food and beverage, the possibility of not having rides, and national entertainers rethinking their tours, we have determined that the challenges of holding the 2020 festival with this high degree of uncertainty is just beyond our abilities this year.

Realize that this has been the most trying issue we have had as leaders of this festival. Thank you to our volunteers who work tirelessly year after year to bring a safe, enjoyable festival to all of us. We also thank our city and county government officials and our many food vendors and corporate sponsors for their support over the years.

We will be back next year to present an epic celebration for our entire community. The 40th Marion Popcorn Festival is now scheduled for the first weekend after Labor Day in 2021.

Mark your calendars, as we will see all of you Sept. 9-11, 2021 on the streets of downtown Marion.