Tbilisoba city festival moving to TV broadcast for pandemic safety

This year's Tbilisoba city festival, an open-air gathering of citizens and visitors of Georgia's capital city to mark its history and cultural delights, will not have a customary run in streets, switching instead to a televised format for its performances as a precaution from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mayor Kakha Kaladze made the announcement at Wednesday's meeting of the city government, revealing that his office had made the decision at the meeting of the Interagency Coordination Council earlier the same day.

Human life and safety for health is the principal, most important [factor] for us, therefore Tbilisoba events will be cancelled. We will be working with the [city hall] culture division to only plan concerts broadcast live to citizens through television" - Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze

Tbilisoba celebrations are customarily held on the first weekend of October through exhibitions, theatre troupe performances, music concerts, craft displays and tasting of local cuisine and wine in the streets.

A number of cultural events and festivals have been cancelled entirely, or moved to online format, due to the pandemic circumstances throughout the year. Even though Georgia reported sub-20 daily confirmed cases of the virus for most of the summer, the numbers have increased this month, and 45 new cases were identified on Tuesday.