Lake George culture is surviving the New York Pause

New York is on pause. For how long, no one knows. The global pandemic has forced restaurants, bars, art and music venues to close and puts plans for spring and summer festivals in limbo. Several Lake George restaurants are offering take-out menus with curbside pick-up or delivery.

The Adirondack Winery has closed its tasting room but is still selling wine with a curbside pick-up option. The Adirondack Pub and Brewery is selling whiskey and beer from the sidewalk along with their in-house produced Whiskey Wash hand sanitizer. Keeping businesses operating, even in this reduced capacity, is a tribute to North Country tenacity. However, a large part of the Lake George culture has been sidelined by Coronavirus.

Art and music require viewers and listeners — audiences. The festival season, with crowds standing shoulder to shoulder, should be kicking off soon. In this uncharted territory of a national health emergency, no one knows how the season will move forward, but local organizations are still alive.

The opening reception for a new Lake George Arts Project exhibit, A solo exhibition of new work by Katherine Chwazik, was scheduled for March 7. With the closure of the Courthouse Gallery, the Arts Project has filled in the void with an online slideshow of the artist’s work.

The Lake George Music Festival is scheduled for August 9-21, 2020, well past the, as of now, New York on Pause end date of April 15. However, the health emergency has left the musicians without live audiences. To remedy this, the Lake George Music Festival organizers have created a Quarantine Concert series. The series will feature mostly solo performances to be live-streamed on Facebook. The 30-minute Concerts will run Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays through April. The concerts are free. Donations will be accepted to support the artists. Everyone who donates during this campaign will be given a free single ticket to an August concert at the Festival and will be entered into a drawing for a free 2020 Season Pass.

The first big music festival planned for 2020 is the new Fins Up trop-rock festival scheduled for June 19-21. Organizers plan to decide by April 19 if the festival will be postponed. Christian Dutcher of Americade, in a March 27 Facebook video, says organizers will decide by mid-April if the early-June rally will go on as planned. Everything else is still on the calendar; Everyone is watching and waiting.