ROSWELL, N.M. (KRQE) – The COVID-19 pandemic has forced some of the biggest events in New Mexico to cancel. The UFO Festival was scheduled to take place this weekend before it was canceled. However, Roswell is still going forward with a different kind of festival.
“I’m just really blown away by the positive, the positivity you know,” said Marie Manning. MainStreet Roswell, the organizers for the UFO Festival said even though they are not allowed to hold the traditional festival that everyone is used to, they have decided to hold a virtual one instead.
“We’re not doing a whole festival, we’re going to be on the courthouse lawn. We’re going to have a tent set up, we’re going to have music but nothing really big going on,” said Juliena Halvorson, President of MainStreet Roswell.
Organizers say they want to give an experience online as close as they can to the actual festival. They will have actual speakers for the event giving their talks, and all events will be done inside the governor’s health order.
“I still can’t believe they’re still making a virtual festival happen, they’re still doing the people costume contest, the pet costume contest,” said Manning.
One of the bigger events from the virtual festival will be the costume contest for people and pets, and anyone can enter for a chance to win.
“What we’re doing is we’re doing a virtual costume contest so anyone in the world can enter a photo for the pet or people and then each category, there’s like eight different categories, each will win $100 prize,” said Juliena.
Submissions will be accepted at the UFO Festival Website until July 2 and the winners will be chosen on July 4. To enter the contest, click here. MainStreet Roswell says it also has a passport program that encourages people to shop local downtown and if they get ten stamps on their passport they will get some cool prizes.
