At the National Cherry Blossom Festival, they aren’t letting COVID-19 stopping them from celebrating Cherry Blossom season in all its glory so they’re going virtual!
The Tidal Basin may now be closed to the public and the Festival’s Opening Ceremony and Parade may have been canceled but that doesn’t mean we can’t go all out and celebrate Cherry Blossom Season this year –safely at home of course. At the National Cherry Blossom Festival, they’re all about safe celebrating so they’re going virtual! That’s right, the festival will be putting together different virtual events and activities on their website for you to celebrate Sakura season from home!
The National Cherry Blossom Festival has now made available its virtual festival where it’ll be posting online events all the way through Apr 12. These will either be those which were set to take place but now have been canceled or a slightly different version of them.
So far, the festival has uploaded two performances by J-pop singer Naotaro Moriyama and Anna Sato X Toshiyuki Sasaki, an alternative musical duo. These artists were supposed to take part in the Open Ceremony and now they’re bringing the ceremony into our homes. There’s also a video tour of the Tidal Basin Blossoms by an NPS park ranger and a link to access the Blossom cam, a 24/7 live stream of the Sakura trees around the Basin. For kids, the festival has created a page full of festival-related arts and crafts and a video on how to make blossom memes called “Blossom Kids.”
There Festival keeps mum about the future events that will come to the website but visitors will have ample opportunities to engage with the festival through auctions and contests. In the meantime take a look at the beautiful opening ceremony performances and take a tour of the Cherry Blossoms by visiting the National Cherry Blossom Festival website here.
Feature image: @cherryblossfest