Thanks to coronavirus, the 2020 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival won’t take place on the last weekend of April and the first weekend of May. It simply can’t.

The festival’s producers haven’t said anything yet about any changes. Obviously, it's complicated.

But in the wake of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ executive order Friday that prohibits public gatherings of more than 250 people through at least April 13 – with the possibility of an extension – Jazz Fest essentially has no choice but to move.

It is currently scheduled to kick off the first of two four-day weekends at the Fair Grounds on April 23. With many millions of dollars at stake, that’s cutting things way too close with the governor’s order.

+13 2020 French Quarter Festival rescheduled because of coronavirus pandemic The 2020 French Quarter Festival has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, organizers announced Friday.

And with fears of the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on travel plans and touring schedules, it would likely be impossible to stage Jazz Fest on its traditional April/May weekends and still expect the bands and hundreds of thousands of attendees to show up. At least one major act, the Avett Brothers, has suspended all touring through at least May 1. More are sure to follow.

So that leaves the festival with two options: cancel outright for the first time in its 51-year history, or postpone to another time of the year, also for the first time.

Given how hard Quint Davis, his team at Festival Productions Inc.-New Orleans, and their partners at global entertainment powerhouse AEG worked to stage the 2006 Jazz Fest just eight months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, they’re not going to cancel. The show must go on, in some form, for good reason: That 2006 Jazz Fest gave the city and its citizens a huge morale boost.

Outright canceling the 2020 festival would send the wrong message about New Orleans – that we couldn't figure out a work-around to this latest adversity – and also be devastating up and down the local economic ladder.

Which means the festival is probably going to be rescheduled. And based on the example of other festivals, it’s possible to guess when: the fall. More than likely, October.

The two-day Buku Music + Art Project at Mardi Gras World, originally scheduled for March 20-21, has already moved to Labor Day weekend in September. September is still brutally hot, and susceptible to hurricanes.

But October, like April, is considered a prime month in New Orleans. Temperatures are usually more mild, and it's not the heart of the hurricane season.

On Friday, the French Quarter Festival announced its postponement from April 16-19 to Oct. 1-4. That's one indication of what Jazz Fest might do.

Another is that AEG, Jazz Fest’s co-producer, has already moved two of its other major events, the Coachella and Stagecoach festivals in southern California, from April to October because of the coronavirus pandemic. So a playbook for a seasonal festival flip-flop exists.

+4 2020 Buku festival in New Orleans postponed because of coronavirus fears The 2020 Buku Music + Arts Project has been postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.

It won’t be easy. Rescheduling hundreds of bands is an enormous undertaking. Some of Jazz Fest’s previously scheduled acts are likely to drop out. There could be other changes.

The food vendors, staging and tent companies, staffers, security – everyone will have to adjust and improvise to make the first-ever fall Jazz Fest work.

But it’s do-able.

October could turn out to be a mirror image of what April was supposed to look like: a weekend of French Quarter Festival followed by two consecutive weekends of Jazz Fest, if Jazz Fest lands on Oct. 8-11 and Oct. 15-18.

The Voodoo Music + Arts Experience in City Park would then close out an incredibly busy month on Oct. 30-Nov. 1.

An announcement about Jazz Fest’s plans is likely this week.

Look for those plans to make an already jam-packed fall in New Orleans even moreso.