Biloxi Black spring break events canceled due to COVID-19 concerns. What to know
Summer Beach Fest at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum has been canceled a second time because of COVID-19, the staff has announced.
“Due to the large number of new Covid-19 cases in Mississippi and the surrounding region, we unfortunately announce all Summer Beach Fest Events will be rescheduled,” the Coliseum website says.
A new date for the weekend will be announced. Tickets can be refunded at the point of purchase.
Over the years, the traditional Black spring break has become dependent on Coliseum concerts to draw crowds. When concerts were canceled in April, a second event fizzled and not many people showed up for Black Beach Weekend.
Black spring break usually attracts thousands of young people to the beach and Coast concerts.
“Without those shows, the event doesn’t have the horsepower it needs to attract people from a regional area,” said the Coliseum’s executive director, Matt McDonnell. “I hate to lose any event, but this isn’t the only event we’ve had peel back on us due to the latest spike.”
The Coliseum had afternoon and evening events scheduled through the weekend, with Gucci Mane set to headline a half-dozen acts at the main concert Saturday night.
“There would have various degrees of music and artists performing for all of them,” McDonnell said.
McDonnell said August seemed like it would work when cases were going down, but the highly contagious delta variant has taken. He just wishes Mississippians would get vaccinated.
“We were in a spike in early April,” he said, “so it didn’t make any sense then, and now we’re back in another spike.’
