For goodness’ sake, you’d think the world was coming to an end.
For 99% of those 5 or so hours that the eclipse is visible (with special lenses) no discernible change is visible to people walking around. In fact if you were to forget about it and look at the sun (with special lenses) a few hours into the eclipse, you’d be surprised to see how much of the sun was covered without producing any noticible change in your surroundings.
shortly before and after the zenith it will be darker as if on a cloudy day. Around the zenith it will go dark for a short period of time – absolutely nothing to freak out about about and not the kind of thing to make anyone change their plans