GREENFIELD — Extravaganja, a yearly rally to support widespread legalization and social acceptance of marijuana, has postponed its anticipated move to Greenfield for a second year now. Previously scheduled for April 17, this year’s event has been canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year would have marked Extravaganja’s 29th year, and its first year ever in Greenfield. The event, which was last held at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton in 2019, was expected to be transferred to the Franklin County Fairgrounds on Wisdom Way.
But the 2020 event was canceled due to the pandemic, and now the 2021 event has also been canceled. A new date of April 16, 2022 is tentatively scheduled with the Franklin County Fairgrounds.
Michael Nelson, president of the Franklin County Agricultural Society, which owns the Franklin County Fairgrounds, said there had been some discussion of rescheduling Extravaganja for this fall, but organizers ultimately decided against it. The fairgrounds opened for the season earlier this month.
“Ultimately it was decided that the easiest thing to do would be to push it off to next spring,” Nelson said.
However, organizers will still have to coordinate the 2022 date with the Greenfield city government, as the legal permits for the 2021 date will have expired, explained Ryan Warner, president of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Cannabis Reform Coalition, which organizes Extravaganja.
Warner declined to comment further, noting only that the pandemic has caused uncertainty for the Cannabis Reform Coalition and its plans for Extravaganja.
Extravaganja, a free, all-ages event, hosts local bands, vendors and speakers to educate about marijuana. It was originally held in Amherst for its first 24 years, and was in Northampton for four years after that. There had been an effort to hold the 2020 event in Holyoke, but it proved logistically too difficult “in terms of downtown construction, traffic management and site procurement,” representatives of the Cannabis Reform Coalition said previously.
The original date in April 2020 was approved by the Greenfield Board of License Commissioners that February, just weeks before the pandemic began. The event was briefly rescheduled for October 2020, but that date was also canceled.
Reach Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.