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By Shane Clausing

Festival of Trees

Festival of Trees returning to Evergreen Park in November

Sep 25, 2020 | 1:25 PM

The Grande Prairie Regional Hospital Foundation’s annual Festival of Trees event is still going on as scheduled this year despite COVID-19.

With COVID-19 hanging around, this year’s event will look a little different. For the first time in the event’s history, it has been expanded from taking place from over three days to eight days at Evergreen Park from November 22-29.

“Rather than setting up in the big hall, because we need to make sure that we social distance, we are utilizing Halls B, C and D, which are the three large banquet halls that Evergreen Park has,” explained Keith Curtis with the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital Foundation.

If you want to attend, you must purchase a ticket online for $5 and there will be no walkup ticket sales.

From there, a maximum of 70 people will be allowed to enter the venue at one time, with those 70 people being swapped out every half-hour.

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Curtis says this will allow crowds to keep moving and avoid congestion inside the facility.

“As they flow in and out of each hall because they’re physically separated, they’ll actually move from hall to hall, so we’ll be letting them in on a pretty consistent basis as they come in.”

“Because it’s more of a trade show, we are allowed to have more than the 50 in there, but we are just trying to ensure that we maintain that social distancing to minimize any risk.”

A mandatory mask policy will also be put in place for the duration of the festival. Visitors are encouraged to bring their own masks, however, there will also be a limited supply of masks at the festival upon entry.

The facility will also be sanitized regularly to ensure the safest possible environment for all attendees.

Curtis also mentioned that on November 23, the event will be restricted for just seniors.

“The Monday we are reserving completely for seniors, just because they’re a high-risk group. We are opening it up to allow the seniors to come through and to spread them out a bit more and to give them a bit more confidence with the guidelines.”

Each hall will have something different in it for attendees to enjoy.

Hall B will feature all of the Christmas trees and will feature various Christmas themed decorations.

Hall C is going to be called the “Children’s Hall”. This will have Santa’s Toy Shop, Children’s World, and the Popcorn Playhouse. Crafts will also be available for kids to take home and make.

Hall D is going to feature a Children’s Secret Shop where kids can have a personalized shopper that will help them shop for gifts as well as candy.

In Hall D, kids will also be able to hop on a Zoom call with Santa and the children will be able to give organizers their email address and send the call to the family.

There are also some other events for families who might not want to attend the event because of the COVID-19 risk. More on those can be found at the Hospital Foundations website.

Despite the extra rules in place, Curtis says he hopes this event can give some people the holiday joy.

“We just hope that everybody is feeling safe and it gives everybody that Christmas spirit that we are able bring forward in November, just before the Christmas season kicks off.”