The Arnold Sports Festival won’t be held in March this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with officials exploring dates in the second half of 2021.
“The Arnold Sports Festival will not be held in March,” spokesman Brent LaLonde told us Friday. “We are currently looking for a date in the third or fourth quarter but do not yet have a confirmed date.”
The Arnold was the first major local event to be impacted by Covid-19 last March, when the pandemic first started spreading across the U.S. Officials had discussed canceling the event altogether, but ultimately let the competitions go ahead with few if any spectators.
Back in October, organizers were still planning to have the 2021 event in March and organizer Bob Lorimer said “we’d like to be one of the first ones back.”
But LaLonde said in an email that “we cannot have our event until it is safe and the governor lifts the order that limits mass gatherings.”
