TUPELO – The Gumtree 10K race will not be held the same weekend as the GumTree Festival this year.

The festival will be held May 6-8, which is Mother’s Day weekend. The race will be held the following Saturday, May 14.

“The reason we can’t have a race on the first weekend is that’s the weekend of the Corinth 10K and a lot of runners do both,” said race director Andy Hughes. “The race is still going to be the day it’s supposed to be,” he said, on the second Saturday of May.

Usually, that weekend also is Mother’s Day weekend. But Mother’s Day weekend is the first weekend of May this year and the GumTree Festival organizers had to make a decision.

“We are traditionally on the Mother’s Day weekend,” said Kit Stafford, executive director of the GumTree Museum of Art, which produces the festival.

“It’s a great commercial weekend for the artists. Long ago, there may have been a festival that wasn’t held on Mother’s Day. But for the last decade, that’s when it’s been held and it has developed a nice reputation. For our artists’ sake, we try to stick to that.”

Now, the race will be held the weekend of the Tupelo Film Festival. Pat Rasberry, director of the film festival, told the Tupelo Convention and Visitors Bureau board on Monday that she sees a lot of potential collaboration for the two events.

“I believe we can come up with some great events for the runners while they are in town,” she said. “I’m looking forward to the partnership with them to see what we can do to support one another.”

About 1,300 people participated in the race last year.

The 10K event goes from about 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday and shuts down part of Jefferson Street in downtown Tupelo. The main part of the film festival is held at The Lyric, which is accessed via Broadway and Jefferson streets.

However, Rasberry said that on Saturday morning the festival focuses on workshops, so there won’t be any problems with the course.

Last year, the race and the GumTree Festival had a very public conflict about the course when the festival moved off the courthouse grounds and onto the roads, which included part of the course.

This year, the course will be the same as it has always been, Hughes said.

Stafford said she expects the race and festival to be back on the same weekend next year, when the second weekend of May also is Mother’s Day weekend.

“We enjoy the race being festival weekend,” Stafford said. “We look forward to joining them again next year. This is just the way the dates lined up.”

Contact Carlie Kollath at (662) 678-1598 or carlie.kollath@journalinc.com.