PLANT CITY, Fla. — The Florida Strawberry Festival opens Thursday. There will be lots of your favorite activities still in place like rides, free entertainment, and of course strawberries, but there will also be many changes.
$600,000 has been invested into COVID-19 updates and renovations to keep everyone safe.
All of the buildings have been updated with air scrubbers. The filters move air up and out of the building quickly.
There will also be over 100 hand sanitizer and handwashing stations located throughout the festival. In addition, the festival has purchased a smart fogging sanitization tunnel from Certified Germ Control.
"All of it's supposed to just kill all the germs on your clothes and on your arms," explained the president of the Florida Strawberry Festival, Paul Davis.
Walking through the sanitization tunnel will be optional, but there are certain safety elements that are not.
Everyone will be required to wear masks while inside buildings and masks are encouraged outside. All vendors and employees will have to wear masks at all times. Social distancing will also be required.
Even with all the changes, some vendors decided to opt-out.
"We have been here for 47 years. And, it's very weird for us not to be a part of it this year," said Jessica Bazley with St. Clements' "Make Your Own Strawberry Shortcake."
St. Clements' iconic "Make Your Own Strawberry Shortcake" stand will not be running this year.
"It was agonizing," said Bazley. "We couldn't figure out a way to keep everybody safe."
Many of the volunteers who run the stand are over the age of 70, and with that group being higher risk, they did not want to take the chance.
But festival organizers feel confident they're doing everything they can to keep people safe.
Every person working at the festival is being trained. "They're going through a training process which we require required. They all need to know the rules and the protocol for what we're doing," said Davis.
There will be people holding signs with reminders, which Davis hopes will be enough to keep people in line. If not, further action will be taken.
The 11 day festival runs from March 4th to the 14th.
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