Cherry Blossom Festival kicks off with ribbon cutting ceremony

The Cherry Blossom Festival is back after the pandemic cancelled it last year.

Organizers say this is the one you don’t want to miss.

Thanks for good evening.

Good evening.

Thanks for joining us for 41nbc news at 6:00.

I'm tucker sargent.

The cherry blossom festival is in full bloom, the ten day long festival started this afternoon.

41nbc's ariel schiller tells us what you can expect this year.

((ariel)) the cherry blossom festival is back after the pandemic cancelled it last year.

Organizers tell me this is the one you don't want to miss.

Governor brian kemp was in town to help kick off the festival with an opening ceremony and ribbon cutting.

He spoke during the ceremony about the hardship the pandemic caused over the last year.

He says he's grateful the festival is able to go on this year because of the economic impact not only to the city but the state as well.

"even moreso than that, especially this year it also brings a sign of great hope and sense of optimism that many of us have not seen over the last one year."

Cherry blossom festival chair ivan allen says he could not be more excited to welcome everyone back this year after having to postpone last year.

"here we are able to do this festival in a safe environment, where we'll keep everybody having fun and we're allowing families to make memories."

During the opening ceremony mayor lester miller proclaimed the renaming of central city park to carolyn crayton park.

We spoke with mayor miller before the ceremony.

He tells us how he feels to have the festival back.

We're just excited, we missed last year and it was very very heartbreaking but we need some sense of normalcy something to be excited about in macon bibb county and the cherry blossom pretty much says it all.

Mayor miller says some events changed to accomodate pandemic protocols but that shows the resiliency of the community.

We decided we were going to have this event no matter what and make sure everybody is safe of course and follow the governor's order but we wanted to have this event.

It means a lot to people, it's a sigh of relief is what i would say at this point in time after all the hard work and c1 3 b13 seeing it come to fruition."

We also spoke with carolyn bird lady freeman she says she's so happy to be for a full list of events, you can go