Penn’s Colony canceled for 2023 due to staffing shortages
Penn’s Colony, the popular annual event near Saxonburg, has been canceled for 2023 after organizers could not attract enough staff to run the event.
Event director Raymond Rush, while reluctant to cancel the beloved event, said he was unwilling to put it on if there was a risk it would go poorly due to the circumstances.
“It boils down to, if you can’t get it ready to go, then it’ll affect customer service. I am a stickler to not impact customers,” Rush said. “It’s a family oriented event, and if we can’t service customers properly ... we don’t see where we could go on.”
This marks the second time in four years that the event has been canceled, with the first occurring in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2023 edition, which would have been the 40th annual Penn’s Colony, was scheduled to take place Sept. 16, 17, 23 and 24. Under ordinary circumstances, the festival is a celebration of life during Pennsylvania’s colonial period, recreating an early American town with more than a hundred historical reenactors, musicians, crafters and food vendors.
Unfortunately, due to numerous factors, those were hard to come by this year, even though employment at Penn’s Colony is paid work, not volunteer.
“We just weren’t getting the interest and employment that we typically get,” Rush said. “Of the few folks who came, it just didn’t fit their criteria. We didn’t have the rate of return that we normally have.”
Rush says that the organizers officially came to the decision to cancel the show by mid-July, but held off announcing it until the end of August to give their would-be vendors time to set up at another event elsewhere.
“We were getting down to where we could not get it prepped,” Rush said. “We wanted to let participants know in a manner that was more forthright ... not waiting until the last minute.”
The organizers promised that Penn’s Colony would return for its 40th showing in September 2024.
Despite the cancellation, September 2023 will still be a loaded month for Saxonburg residents, with both the annual Sprankle’s Octoberfest and the inaugural Minglefest taking place simultaneously.
