Paintsville Tourism: After a 12 months of COVID shutdown, occasions planning in full swing | Information

After a year of lockdown and decreased activity, Paintsville Tourism looks to a more open future.

During the Paintsville Tourism Board’s regular meeting on March 15, the board heard from Director Josh Johnson an update on several events currently scheduled for later this month as well as April and May.

March 6 was a year since the COVID-19 shutdown began and Paintsville Tourism had to cancel several events, like so many other companies, organizations, and organizations involved in live entertainment that were particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

Johnson said he is excited to get back to work bringing some new events and opportunities for Johnson County residents to explore and enjoy our area, and hopefully attract something outside of tourism as well.

“It feels great, I missed doing events. I love doing things for the community and I love doing things to bring out what tourism is for, ”said Johnson. “I’m really excited to be back on track, hosting events, engaging our community, doing things for the kids, and like I said, we have some tour groups planning to come this year that couldn’t I am very confident that this year will be a lot better than 2020. “

Johnson, who has announced several events for the coming months, said the last year was an opportunity to slow down and investigate the state of the Commission’s properties and venues.

“We tried to solve one problem each time, as we discussed at the meeting: the parking spaces. I hadn’t really taken the time to brake long enough to actually see the state of the ground we walk on, the floors we walk on. The parking lot was definitely something I realized when we got the time to slow down, which definitely had to be done, ”said Johnson. “The (US 23 Country Music Highway Museum) has of course fundamentally redesigned the interior of the museum. It just helped. Everyone has loved it so far; The wedding people think it’s absolutely beautiful. All the time and effort put into maintenance and upkeep during our closure was well worth it. We will continue to do preventative maintenance and keep evolving. “

Those spaces will be in use this season, Johnson said, including the newly completed tourism pavilion located behind Paintsville City Hall in Paint Creek Park – which, luckily, Johnson said was completed just in time as Paint Creek Park is currently closed to the public due to a slip that endangers the stage.

“It’s kind of a blessing in disguise, we started before COVID and I had no idea COVID was going to hit it, but now even more schools are trying to get degrees outside on soccer fields to spread the word and.” I am very grateful that we had the opportunity to attend and we will have another space for outdoor events in addition to In The Pines Amphitheater and I am very hopeful that we can do a lot more outside now, ”said Johnson.

After a year of shutdowns and cabin frenzy, Johnson believes the public is ready for more in-person events and expects a huge turnout for those events.

“I think especially since we’ve basically been out of business for a year and no one has been able to get out and do stuff, I think we’re going to see a huge influx especially this year,” said Johnson. “That’s something I’m going to try over there at the pavilion, I’ve always wanted to try a country night, you know, we have front porch pickin ‘every Thursday night, and that’s bluegrass geared, but I want everyone, especially ours Giving locals a chance to come and if they want to do something out of the country or otherwise we now have the space to do so. “

Johnson said it was “heartbreaking” not to be able to host these events during the 2020 pandemic.

“For me the biggest thing was, and I know for the Commission, too, that it was heartbreaking not to be able to hold our events the way we planned, you know, a year before the last Pumpkin Patch launch it was a one great success and all the kids really enjoyed it and we were looking forward to another great year and of course we couldn’t make it, ”said Johnson. “When the kids light up like that and really enjoy it, you feel good, but we didn’t see that either.”

According to Johnson, the pressure on his work as director was heightened by planning events to contain the pandemic, and he hoped the community understood that safety was paramount during the pandemic and that the lack of events was not a lack of desire .

“As much as I wanted to do things and the commission wanted to do things, safety is paramount,” Johnson said. “You know, there hasn’t been an event worth taking the risk of getting sick or endangering their health. I hope everyone understood. We definitely wanted to host events and we had a great year ahead of us, but we had to postpone everything. Hopefully we’re back on track this year and I promise we have a lot to do for the community and just get things back to normal. “

One of the events currently planned for the coming months is an evening with live music in the newly built tourism pavilion. The stage will be christened by Pikeville native Bill Dotson, who will be performing a solo acoustic set on March 27th from 7pm to 10pm.

Thereafter, four further events are currently planned, including an “Easter Egg Drop” on April 3rd from 12.00 to 15.00 in the Mountain Homeplace, where prepackaged Easter bunny treats are distributed over a passage, a princess. Celebrate on April 10th between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the US 23 Country Music Highway Museum with a candy buffet, make-up, meet and greet several prominent princesses from well-known film franchises and handicrafts, a screening of the classic film Forrest Gump at the SIPP Theater, starting on April 19 at 7 p.m. and a superhero party on May 22nd from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. with meet & greets, autographs, photos and much more in the US 23 Country Highway Music Museum.

For more information, visit the Paintsville Tourism website at: www.paintsvilletourism.comor search for Paintsville Tourism on Facebook. According to Johnson, RSVPs at these events are especially helpful at this time to aid planning efforts so that all events can be hosted in accordance with CDC and state guidelines in force at the time of the events.

The Paintsville Tourism Commission meets on the third Monday of each month at 4:00 p.m. at the US 23 Country Music Highway Museum. All meetings are public.