Arts and Culture Alliance cancels Thursday concert, will be monitoring COVID situation weekly

COEUR d'ALENE — The Coeur d'Alene Arts and Culture Alliance has canceled the first show of its free Riverstone Concert Series because of the recent increase in COVID-19 cases.

The concert was scheduled for Thursday evening and would have featured blues and jazz singer CeCe Curtis, who is known for her tribute to Mildred Bailey, a member of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe known as the "Queen of Swing." The opening act scheduled was singer-songwriter Pamela Benton.

"I think we had a lot of these precautions in place, but I think it's really important for us to communicate to the community that we are working to ensure as much safety as possible," Arts and Culture Alliance executive director Ali Shute said Tuesday.

Shute said the Arts and Culture Alliance is working on a plan with the city of Coeur d'Alene for how to conduct these concerts while protecting concert-goers. She said she certainly hopes the July 9 concert can still proceed as planned, but masks will more than likely be a requirement for future events.

"We’re going to have to require people to wear masks, at least to come in and out, and maybe have one entrance so we can monitor that a little better," she said. "When you’re walking around with other people, you want to be safe, especially with this whole idea that you could be contagious and not know it."

She said planning for the concerts is like "balancing balls."

"This is a constantly changing situation, so we’re going to have to monitor this on a weekly basis," Shute said. "I do think this whole situation has been a wake up call for everybody. We can’t drop our guard. We have to be on guard and vigilant. And yet, we are still human beings who need our dosage of art and that hope that things are going to get better.

"We've just got to keep persevering," she continued. "We’re still trying, but we want the community to know our foremost responsibility is ensuring that we take every precaution to make sure everyone is safe."

Info: www.artsandculturecda.org