Welcome to Lost in the 20s!

SANDPOINT, ID - As the region ushers in a new season of summer fun, the Historical Society has announced a new event to help jumpstart the local economy and give the community's spirit a needed boost. The inaugural Lost in the 20s! festival is slated to take place with various organizations, companies, and entities on hand to help recreate a memorable experience of the coronavirus pandemic that ravaged the region in April of 2020.

The deadly pandemic spread like wildfire at the start of the outbreak, afflicting as many as four people across the county with low-grade fever and sniffles, causing news media to instill fear amongst the local population. The incident shut down the regional economy, shuttering most businesses and sending thousands of families into financial peril.

Take a step back in time as the Idaho Labor Force sponsors the Unemployment Line to Nowhere experience. Attendees will have the chance to stand in line at the booth for hours on end, six feet apart, watching in horror as the computer system malfunctions and loses their data; feign frustration after being told they forgot to fill out form EZ-1040 and will have to come back tomorrow to start over; and, right at the end, react violently after finding out that there are in fact no available jobs.

Building supply emporium Home Slice will be sponsoring a realistic Essential Services booth, where children can experience being told who gets to work and who gets to sit down and stay safe. The work simulation will offer children a chance to engage hands-on in simple construction projects like building birdhouses and gun racks, finger painting “Closed for Covid” door signs, and making pallet and tarp homes after finding they can't pay rent anymore.

Vintage mask stylish during the 20s

Area senior group Stitch & Bitch will re-enact the lost art of sewing face masks by hand using reclaimed scraps of fabric. An educational workshop is planned, using science-based facts and models showing how coronavirus molecules smaller than a ray of light rapidly breach the loose edges of most masks. Volunteers will demonstrate the masks' lack of effectiveness by touching and readjusting their masks 457 times, the typical daily average amongst PPE wearers.

City leaders will be pitching in by demanding that all restaurants and other small businesses close for the festival weekend, only a week after reopening. Downtown streets will be blocked off and once again torn up into large piles of rubble and open sewage pits, just like it was "back in the 20s". Event planners felt that life in April 2020 could not be adequately depicted without an actual wrath of destruction, and the city and local contractors jumped at the opportunity to lend their support.

Lost in the 20s is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of July 4th, for maximum tourist impact.