Mathews Market Days, the popular annual fall festival, is the latest victim of theCOVID-19 pandemic.

In a letter shared on social media and the Market Days’ website, co-chairs Christine Johnson and Morgan Hudgins said that the Market Days Committee made the decision to cancel the 2020 event during its monthly meeting last Thursday.

“This has become a sad trend,” said the letter. “If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a hundred times.”

Two factors impacted the committee’s decision, said Johnson and Hudgins. The obvious one was the COVID-19 restrictions “that are having ripple effects across the world.”

The second, less obvious factor, they said, was financial. Vendor registration is the festival’s primary source of income, and as of the date of the decision it was “less than one-third of normal.”

“We suspect that many vendors held off because of the coronavirus,” said the letter. “Whatever their reason, there is not sufficient income to cover event expenses.”

The two...