A planned Cinco de Mayo street festival for downtown Bethesda has been called off this year.
Cinco de MayoThon was supposed to take place Saturday, starting with a “micro-marathon” and including live music, food, performances and games.
Mark Scott, president of Mark IV Builders and a member of the Bethesda Chevy Chase Rotary Club, which had planned the event, said restaurants and musicians were “overloaded” and the rotary club couldn’t book enough of them.
“It turns out when Cinco de Mayo actually falls on a weekend, it’s like super St. Patrick’s day for the Mexican community,” he said. “The musicians and everyone are just so heavily in demand that it just doesn’t make sense for them to do something like that.”
The rotary club still plans to hold the event next year—but the weekend before Cinco de Mayo.
The event was set to replace Strut Your Mutt. The rotary club won’t hold another major fundraiser until its annual Turkey Chase.
Cinco de MayoThon was planned in conjunction with the Mexican embassy and had intended to raise money for JUCONI, a charity in Puebla, Mexico, where the Battle of Puebla, which the holiday commemorates, took place.
The rotary club will give at least $5,000 of its own funds to the charity this year.
“It’s such a big project we just couldn’t get it together in the fashion that we knew would be a top quality event,” Scott said. “Now we’ll have next year to get it really set up well.”
