Organizers of the Rockin’ River Music Fest in Merritt would have been getting set as the four-day country music festival, the largest summer event in the Nicola Valley, was to begin today.

Founder Kenny Hess says while he is sad there won’t be a festival this year because of restrictions on large crowds, he says cancelling it was the right thing to do.

“I am so proud of our government for the way that they have handled all of this. They have done the right thing and because of it, we don’t have 150,000 deaths in our country,” he said on The Jeff Andreas Show.

“Yes, the festival is losing some money, but we’ll get it back. The fact that we aren’t losing a ton of lives like they are in the states, we have to give props to the government for that. I think they’ve done a wonderful job.”

Grammy-award winner Keith Urban was set to headline the festival over the BC Day long weekend in August, alongside Jon Pardi, Chris Janson, and Travis Tritt. People who had tickets were able to ask for a refund or keep their tickets which will be honoured for next year’s festival.

Keith Urban won’t be part of the 2021 edition, but there is optimism that he will be back for the 2022 festival.

“I’m just sad I don’t get to sing for all of my friends. We had a wonderful lineup. Most of our artists are going to be coming back for 2021,” Hess added. “We will have a terrific lineup announced as soon as we hear from Dr. Bonnie Henry that we’re able to for 2021, we’re excited about it.”

He says they were poised to have a very successful 2020 edition of Rockin’ River Music Fest.

“We had reached the numbers that we had last year at the end of the festival, we had already reached those numbers back in March,” he noted. “You know, I don’t want to cry over spilt milk, but its quite sad, but at the same time, it tells me that we were doing the right thing, and that people enjoyed our festival.”

Hess says organizers are focusing their efforts on the 2021 edition of the festival which is set to happen between July 29 and August 1.