The COVID-19 pandemic has put a damper on seeing Toronto’s High Park cherry blossoms in person. As an alternative that aims to avoid physical crowds in High Park, the city is planning to livestream its hugely popular rite of spring event to people’s screens at home.
In an interview with CP24, Toronto mayor John Tory says the city is planning to make a formal announcement about its plans for the event. He adds the plan will include strict prohibitions on people seeing the High Park blossoms in person.
“We are going to be outlining the plan for the cherry blossoms today and it is not going to be one that people are going to be thrilled with because if you were planning on a trip out to High Park we are going to be very much discouraging that because of the crowding and the spread of the virus,” said Tory.
“But we are going to be indicating some details of a streaming service so people can look at the blossoms from home anytime they want or from their iPad in the back of a taxi if they want.”
To help keep the tradition alive, Rogers is providing infrastructure to the ‘Bloomcam’ live stream, which they are sponsoring.
“Canadians across our country can now access a front-row view to the blossoming Sakura (cherry blossom) trees in Toronto’s High Park, thanks to free Internet services enabled by Fixed Wireless Access, donated by Rogers,” said Rogers in a statement.
The event typically attracts a massive crowd of people, with the number of cherry blossom watchers historically being in the hundreds. The dozens of cherry blossoms trees usually begin blooming either in late April or early May.
The city hasn’t stated if it will formally close all or part of High Park to discourage any crowds forming this year. Tory says an update on those details will be provided later. The city has already closed the area within its roughly 1,500 parks, but the green spaces within them remain open.
“You know we want to do this in a way that is respectful of the fact that we got to adhere to reasonable constrains on people, but at the same time it is a very big practical undertaking to try to close off part of a park like that,” said Tory.
“It is still probably 10 days away according to the blossom predictor. We will just do our very best to make sure people can see this but they really can’t be part of a crowd scene this year.”
Update 04/29/2020 4:30pm: This story has been updated with information regarding Rogers’s contribution to the High Park cherry blossom live stream.
Image Credit: Sachiho/Flickr
Source: CP24
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