Today we are letting you know of more cancellations for major events usually taking place downtown this time of year. Most of this comes as no surprise. The following events are cancelled this year:

• Blues & BBQ Festival
• Labor Day Parade
• St. Patrick’s Day Parade (previously re-scheduled for September)

We were kind of looking forward to a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in September, but understand that once again safety precautions must be taken in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The good news in all of this is that parking downtown is still free, and free parking has been extended until Labor Day weekend, September 7th for now!

Above is a picture of Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker walking six feet apart from some penguins. This is definitely not a news news website (just local music news), however the most recent extension of the stay-at-home order issued by the governor yesterday of course effects us because it determines at what point we will be able to open up our store again. The most recent extension has the stay-at-home order going until May 30th. This means our physical store will remain closed throughout the entire month of May.

However! The good news in all of this is that curbside pickup and delivery is now opening up as an option for non essential businesses such as ourselves starting on May 1st. We have been keeping things to shipping and “free local shipping” throughout April. Starting in May we may be considering having curbside pickup as an option for local orders – however we have not completely decided yet.

Now that April Fools Day is over it is time to return to some sad, sad news regarding COVID-19 and precautions that must be taken to fight it in which will effect on our small local businesses, communities, and events.

In the past week or so there have been some more major cancellations for annual large events that usually take place downtown. These are events we look forward to as a downtown business, and it certainly won’t help us that they are cancelled, even if our store is able to be open at any point in May.

One of the first annual events that happens downtown is the Fat Ass 5k, which was scheduled to take place this year on May 9th. Although we hadn’t announced anything, we were originally planning on bands or hip hop acts performing outside of our space for this event. The event has not officially cancelled just yet, but this is what their facebook page recently stated:

The Fat Ass 5k & Street Party for Charity Committee is in the process of evaluating all our options regarding the 2020 event.

We will make a definitive announcement regarding the 2020 Fat Ass 5k & Street Party for Charity, and refund options (if applicable) by April 15th. We appreciate your Fat Ass patience!

Other than Fat Ass 5k, the biggest weekend for downtown Springfield in May has been Springfield Pride Fest and The Old Capitol Art Fair, which take place on the same weekend and were scheduled for May 16th. You can see the statement from The Phoenix Center regarding Pride Fest above.

The Old Capitol Art Fair released a statement on Monday:

Due to the uncertainty of the COVID 19 (coronavirus) pandemic and President Trump extending social distancing recommendations until April 30th the Springfield Old Capitol Art Fair for 2020 has been cancelled.

The committee thanks our Student Art contest winners for their submissions this year. All winners will be contacted directly, and prizes will still be awarded. Artists will receive their booth refunds within the next 3 weeks.

Thank you to our artists, vendors, sponsors and patrons. We look forward to seeing you next year. Please mark your calendars for May 15th & 16th, 2021

We are dreading to think about what other spring and summer and future events will be effected by precautions that must be made in fighting COVID-19. We’ll continue to try and send out updates on downtown, you can also follow the Downtown Springfield Inc. facebook page.

All shows that we previously had scheduled at Dumb Records are cancelled until we are at a point where we can announce our return.

Trying our best to stop the spread of the coronavirus certainly is serious business, and unfortunately we for-see some more serious implications coming our way as an all ages music venue. Yesterday we announced that we were pulling the plug on shows from now through the end of March after Governor J.B. Pritzker ordered the closure of all bars and restaurants in that timeframe. After that and also yesterday, the Center for Disease Control issued a new guidance recommending no public gatherings of 50 or more people be held between now and the next eight weeks.

This just about means no shows for us during that time frame as well – things are changing very rapidly on a day-to-day basis with the coronavirus and the state’s response to preventing it. We are not officially cancelling all of the shows we had lined up through 8 weeks (May 10th), but the chances of them happening are looking unlikely. There were previously a total of fifteen shows we had scheduled (some of which were not announced yet) in that time period.

A number of downtown shops are beginning to close as well, we are *loosely* open today and these next few days our normal hours of 10:00 am to 8:00 pm, but everything is changing so rapidly that we are embracing for having to close store. We are continuing to sell music online through Discogs, and will likely be launching a separate store for shirts and other merchandise very soon.

Unfortunately the big Dumb Records Game Show Night being put together by Country Bingo Jack has been cancelled for tonight. There was a technical malfunction with our trivia-bot resulting in a major clean-up needing to take place in our venue space. Country Bingo Jack had this to say:

“The trivia-bot became way too powerful. His vacuum cleaner arms combined with his ever-expanding knowledge of music trivia and all types of different trivia became uncontrollable. While my mother and myself were focusing on making sure the cake-walk portion of tonight’s event was going to be top-notch, we should have been focusing on containing the trivia-bot. We had him stored in the basement of Dumb Records, but as we were unloading a round of cakes to be set up last night stumbled across a horrific discovery. The trivia bot had torn through the main level floor up through the basement with his knowledge alone. It looks as if he has eaten the first round of cakes we had brought over for the cake walk as well, presumably with his vacuum cleaner arms. Now the trivia-bot has absorbed more knowledge about cakes and all of the different ingredients that made up each cake. He busted through the side wall out into the alley and looked as if he was heading straight for the Illinois governor’s mansion (presumably to their grand ballroom’s kitchen where there are more cakes).”

That’s all the info we have on that matter for now. The Dumb Records Game Show Night may or may not be re-scheduled for a later date. We do have a show still happening tomorrow night featuring Sorry Charlie, Nic Gundy, Jessica Cloyd, and Nathan Dickerson.

We are sorry to be bringing some bad news here at the beginning of the month and we did have some exciting things planned with The Absurdist People’s Theatre Troupe, but unfortunately due to some unforseen circumstances that theatre troupe’s production of August Wilson’s Gem of The Ocean is being cancelled. The production was going to be held at Black Sheep May 19th, 20th, and 21st. Follow The Absurdist People’s Theatre Troupe on facebook to see if any more information is available later on about any sort of rescheduling or any later projects being planned.

Our shows calendar has also been updated.

We know we all have been very excited for the circus to be coming to Black Sheep tonight. Unfortunately we have to break some of the saddest news we have ever had to break in a while on our site, and that is that the circus is no longer happening and tonight’s show is cancelled :'(. The Tinderbox Circus Sideshow had some van troubles and regrettably had to drop their last run of performances on this tour. We will try to get them back at some point.

This means the next show at Black Sheep is not happening until Friday, October 9th. There is a show at Rock N’ Roll Hardee’s you might want to check out this Saturday, October 3rd. Also check out our shows page to see what other shows are coming up at Black Sheep this fall.