The Crab, Seafood & Wine Festival will be held in person this April for the first time in three years.

The popular event, which regularly sees over 10,000 attendees, serves as a fundraiser for the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce and community groups.

First held in 1982, the festival was canceled in 2020 due to coronavirus pandemic safety measures.

Last year’s virtual event featured an online marketplace allowing participants to chat with vendors and watch live music from their screens. It also included Festival Feast passports, encouraging trips to participating businesses and restaurants around town.

“The virtual events in recent years were as fun as we could make them with an online expo, small pop-up events like the Astoria clowns drive-up and the inaugural Festival Feast dining passport that helped connect festival patrons with local restaurants,” David Reid, the chamber’s executive director, said in a statement. “However, we are excited to be planning to return to the festival format we have come to love and be among our friends – vendors, volunteers and attendees alike.”

This year, the crab festival will return to the Clatsop County Fairgrounds from April 22 to April 24. Vendor applications opened earlier this month, and the chamber anticipates around 175 vendors selling crafts, food and drinks.

At past events, the Astoria Rotary Club ran the crab feed as its main fundraiser and source of scholarship funding for local high schoolers.

Thursday’s announcement of the festival’s in-person return generated some buzz on the event’s Facebook page. Within the hour, the comment section filled with dozens of people tagging their friends, many with multiple exclamation points.

Earlier this week, the Oregon Health Authority projected that hospitalizations from COVID-19 will significantly decline by late March. The state has announced that an indoor mask mandate imposed as a precaution against the virus will be lifted no later than March 31.

Other signature events that usually take place early in the year remain disrupted by the pandemic.

The annual FisherPoets Gathering, which will take place in late February, will be held virtually. The event will be free online at fisherpoets.org.

Fort George Brewery canceled its Festival of Dark Arts again this year, and is instead holding activities throughout Stout Month in February, including live music.

Tickets for the crab festival will be available online beginning April 1.