The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted sporting events, concerts, and festivals across the world so far this year, and Marshall County is no exception.

In a press release delivered to the Tribune on Friday, the city of Lewisburg announced the cancellation for this year of the city’s annual Goats, Music, and More Festival, scheduled for the second weekend in October.

The release cited the uncertainty regarding future guidelines for social distancing and crowd size as obstacles to planning the event that couldn’t be overcome.

Consideration was given to holding only the world championship goat shows on that weekend, but the committee ultimately made the decision to cancel those as well.

The city does plan for the festival to return next year, hoping that issues caused by the pandemic will be resolved at that point.

This year would have been the 18th edition of the event.

Expenditures for the annual festival, have been questioned by some city residents as the city tries to rebuild its fund balance for emergencies and operating cash.

According to the city’s 2018-19 budget, the most recent audited data shows expenditures that year of $128,472 for the festival against revenues of $105,830.

At the city council meeting on March 9, before the COVID-19 pandemic really took hold, Bingham announced that the city intended to hold the festival again this year with reduced costs and a push for more sponsorship dollars.