KEY WEST, Fla. – The risk of coronavirus transmission has prompted organizers in the Florida Keys to cancel this year's Fantasy Fest.Key West's annual masking and costuming festival had been scheduled for Oct.
16-25, but festival director Nadene Grossman Orr said Thursday that the 41st edition will not be staged.The festival was developed in 1979 to bolster off-season business in the tourism-based economy.
It grew to generate some $30 million in annual revenues for the Florida Keys island chain.“Since there will not be a Fantasy Fest 2020, we are concerned about how the island’s workers will be affected,” Grossman Orr said.About half of the Florida Keys workforce is employed in tourism-related jobs, Keys tourism officials said.