Let me explain…. As a person involved in the Agriculture and Fair industry I have a little insight and perspective that might help you understand why this is happening, and how this will allow you to enjoy all these events next year as well.

There has been a complete trickle-down effect on agriculture and small businesses since the near complete shutdown of our country due to the Coronavirus several weeks ago. One thing you may have noticed in most recent weeks, particularly if you are from the New England area, is that many of your favorite events and fairs that start in the summer and go into early fall have already begun to cancel or postpone. The question many have asked, or shall I say, commented on many social media sites and news article postings are “Why? It’s so early?”, “Things could change between now and then, I think this is too premature!”, “That event is in September, come on, the restrictions seem like they’ll be lifted by then!” followed by the many, “We’re never going to have a summer!”, “Might as well cancel 2020 as all my favorite events aren’t happening”, and so on.

Here is where I can provide you with a little bit of insight and hopefully help you understand a little more as to why it’s being done so soon versus pulling the plug at the last minute. However, there’s a lot that goes into it and I’m going to try and give you the simplest breakdown throughout this post, so hang in there with me. Either way, whether it happens now or later, no one is going to be happy about their favorite events not happening in the end.

A Postponed Maine Fair Season

At least from my perspective here in Maine, many summer events, particularly agricultural fairs, and even the early fall ones are postponing now for a wide variety of reasons. Have you ever actually looked around and taken in everything that is at the fair? Take a minute and close your eyes. Picture yourself at the last fair you went to and everything that surrounded you. Food vendors, carnival rides, livestock exhibits, craft barns and exhibition halls with hundreds of vendors filling each nook and cranny, other individual craftsmen and vendors selling their goods in other sections of the fair, entertainers, and then you have the people who work (or for some, volunteer) to run the fair, and then the large crowds of people who come. There’s a lot of things that go into making the fair or any small or large event happen. Now if you separated each of those exhibits and vendors out and how they have been impacted by the virus, then you might start to see why fairs are slowly choosing to opt-out of hosting their event this year.

Let’s start with all your food vendors. They’ve been impacted pretty badly. First of all, most of those food vendors that you see at one of the fairs you attend during the Maine fair season, has likely been to more than one fair in Maine or has been to another fair outside of Maine already. Most food vendors follow the entire fair circuit in the state, if not also outside of the state balancing between some of the largest in New England and Maine where they are the most profitable. This may also be their sole source of income and living, and what most of you may not know is that in the rest of the country, fairs happen all year round for the most part. In fact, Florida had one fair, the Southwest Florida Lee County Fair successfully wrap up before quarantine orders were put into effect, and another, the Sarasota County Fair, canceled one hour before they were set to open due to the virus and the restrictions that were already swiftly being put into place. So many of these vendors may very well plan and budget their buying of resources to make their food based on the fair or fairs they are going to and how much business they plan to get during their run on the fair circuit, or even at each individual fair. Second of all, with the shutdown and shelter-in-place orders, no income for the last few months, limited accessibility to resources due to high consumer demand and limited staffing at major distribution centers, and a very uncertain summer season (which is typically the busiest), some vendors may not have the funds or could justify spending the money to open up shop for only a handful of fairs. Lastly, to top it all off, with wavering opinions from the public on the virus and being out and about, not knowing if people will want to come to a fair, and if they will make enough to turn a profit for the cost of buying a rental space, and their travel, gas, and lodging expenses would be enough for them to consider not coming at all. All in all, your food vendors definitely have been hard hit this season with everything that is going on.

Now let’s go to your carnival rides, same as with the food vendors, many of these large carnival ride businesses follow the fair circuit all season or all year long. They also have to have a lot of help to set-up the rides, operate them, run the ticket booths, etc. and some of that help relies on sponsorships or Visas to work here in the U.S. for the fair season. Although there are programs that would allow those workers to pass through either the Northern or Southern borders of the country to do essential work, depending on where they are coming from, with the uncertainty of how much work will be around, it may also not be feasible to bring them here. It takes a lot to operate and maintain all the rides that are needed and you really do need a full staff to do it. You also need fairs to go to and people at a fair who are going to pay to ride the rides to make it profitable to go as well. Carnival rides and games would also need to have stringent cleaning protocols in place for the multiple high touch areas, and of course, the staff would be subjected to the current 14-day quarantine order as well which would be tough with most lodging facilities closed until at least July.

Let’s take a look inside some of those Craft Barns and Exhibition Halls you see at the fairs with tons of vendors selling a wide variety of goods. A decent number of them do have social media pages and websites where you can order from, maybe even brick and mortar stores (which are likely closed, maybe doing curbside business at this point), but a lot of the smaller local vendors also follow the fair circuits. Some of them make enough to sell for just their local fair season or for a handful of fairs, while others may follow a few fair circuits, and like with most businesses, it’s a numbers game based on what they did the year prior in terms of sales, so they plan on making that and then maybe or hopefully a little more. Again, with an unexpected summer, many fairs shutting down, and a slower than normal spring season, some of these vendors, particularly the smaller, individually owned and operated ones, even for the fairs that choose to run, may be wary of coming with the risk of making so much product yet not turning a profit on it. They also have to consider travel, gas, lodging, and other expenses that are involved with going and exhibiting at a fair. If you have any vendors that are from outside of the state, they need to make arrangements to do a 14-day quarantine prior to their first fair, which could be hard and a very large additional expense they may not have the funds for.

Now let’s review your Exhibition Shows and Entertainers. A lot of fairs hire local entertainment, some fairs also hire one or two really big acts and pay good money for them to come in order to draw in large crowds (something that is restricted right now across the country anyways). Most entertainers right now aren’t booking or traveling, and that’s a LARGE expense for a fair to put out not knowing if they will even get the ticket sales to make it worth it. So that’s an expense some fairs may altogether forget about if they even choose to have a fair or a scaled down version of their fair, and save for the following year and use to hire someone really big, but it’s also a huge loss for many fairs as part of their daily line-up of events to help draw in visitors. Now your Exhibition shows are different, I’m talking Livestock Exhibition shows, Truck Pulls, Tractor Pulls, etc. Speaking from the view of someone who works in the Draft Horse & Pony Show world, I would say at least a third of our show teams are from out of state and come to a handful of the other big Maine and New England fairs. If you look at the mandates and restrictions that are in place for the State of Maine with regards to travel, if you are from out-of-state you must quarantine in place (no movement) for 14 days. That would be impossible if you were coming to show at a fair. That would mean that exhibitors and their horses, for example, would have to come 2 weeks prior to the first fair and quarantine bringing enough food for their horses, hay, water, supplements, and whatever necessities needed, plus their own food, and then whatever they would need for the length of the fair, plus any additional supplies if they were continuing on to more fairs within the state or region. We also get a lot of exhibitors from Canada as well. Currently, the Northern Border is closed except for essential business travel (i.e. truck drivers delivering water, lumber, food, etc.), and a large majority of Canadian fairs and shows have been canceled. With the same quarantine rules in effect and an even larger expense on these exhibitors crossing the border (if it opens up), they likely wouldn’t come for one or two fairs. Now, this perspective of travel just comes from my knowledge for the Draft Horse & Pony Show world, but I know it can apply to many of our other Livestock Exhibitors as well, such as Goats, Sheep, Swine, Beef, Dairy, Steer, Oxen, and more as many exhibitors are from within Maine but plenty come from outside of Maine as well to show in our fair circuit. This is especially applied to again, the Show Horses & Ponies and the Horse Pullers who see exhibitors from across New England, the US, and Canada. Not only do these exhibitors have to worry about their own food costs and necessities along with their livestock, but they need permission and access to hook up their campers to electricity and water at the first fairground they are showing at or find a place to hook up and board their horses (they cannot stay in a trailer safely for 14 days) plus access to a dumping station for waste. That’s just a fraction of the things they have to consider when thinking of traveling to a fair to show, especially with these newer restrictions.

So now I have shared with you some of the reasons as to why many exhibitors and vendors may not want to or be able to take part in a fair, even if one could happen under the state mandates. However, now I think it’s time I actually get into the nitty-gritty of it all from the fair’s perspective itself. I have a really different insight than many as I not only work on all the behind the scenes action to help put on some of the events at a fair, attend meetings to understand changes being made, improvements or enhancements needed, and the financial health, etc. of our fair as a member. I also happen to be a member of the Maine Association of Agricultural Fairs Board which gives me an even deeper insight into how we support all 25 member fairs of our organization, and an appreciation for how each fair operates, what they each bring to the state and our organization, but also what issues they continue to tackle.

All of Maine’s fairs run as non-profits and they range in size, from small to large. The way each fair operates financially is different as well. Some fairs heavily rely on sponsorships from local businesses to help them operate each year on top of the funds they receive during the fair week, while others are self-funded or much more self-sufficient relying on savings and earnings from their fair each year. One thing that all fairs have in common is that they need people to help run their fair and the events within it, but how they get that help varies from fair to fair as well. Several of Maine’s fairs solely rely on unpaid volunteers to help them run their events year after year, while others have the capacity to pay some or all of their workers that help keep the fair running day in and day out. However, if you ever took a look around at the people who are helping to run the fairs each year, they are of an older generation and that population is the population that is considered to be at the “highest risk” of severe illness if they contract COVID-19. Many fairs may not want to risk putting those volunteers or employees at risk by running an event this year, where they would come in contact with so many people over the course of just one day or even several days, depending on the fair. On the other side of that coin, many fairs have shared the concerns they have received from volunteers and employees that they do not want to come this year and put themselves at risk, which puts them down manpower to help run the fair. It takes a lot of people to keep an event, small or large moving efficiently, and being down just a handful of people can definitely have an impact on the flow of traffic in and out of a fair, or the efficiency of an event to run.

Fairs financially rely on a successful run of their week in order to be able to continue each year. With COVID-19 even some of the smaller fairs may not risk putting on a fair, even though they have space for people to be able to socially distance and likely do not draw nearly as large of a crowd as some of the others. The financial burden a fair would take on to prepare themselves to open for a fair season without the confidence of any fairgoers, vendors, exhibitors, etc. would be an undertaking that many would not be able to bounce back from, it would, in fact, be almost more beneficial to save and postpone this year in order to have a really amazing fair in 2021, than try and purchase all the extra sanitation and equipment needed per CDC and state guidelines or mandates and do everything else needed regularly to get their fair up and running. On top of that, many fairs do not even want to consider chancing being the host site of a potential infection or outbreak of COVID-19 or putting their volunteers or employees at risk of contracting it or putting fairgoers at risk by putting on a fair.

So the bottom line…fairs aren’t postponing just because of the mandates and thinking of throwing in the towel early and not being optimistic about the future. They are postponing early to financially save themselves and because there really may not be anyone around to help run their fair or put on the kind of quality event that people have come to expect year after year. One thing I can say for certain as a member of the Maine Association of Agricultural Fairs Board and as a member of a Maine fair, is that these people really take pride in what they are doing. They strive every year to make sure they put on the absolute best event that they possibly can for their fairgoers year after year, making improvements to the fairgrounds, trying to become more active on social media and stay up to date with technology, adding more events that draw in more crowds and appeal to all different types of fairgoers, etc. The people who are the backbone of these fairs put their whole heart and soul into the production of it, and it’s something that never stops. These fairs start planning the day after their fair ends for the next fair season. I know as being a Superintendent, I spend my off-work time from my full-time job working on creating materials to reach out and attract more exhibitors to show each year and communicating with my team to ensure I have help for my event, and if I don’t, working with colleagues on the grounds to get the help that I need. It’s a never-ending job, and as soon as my show ends, I’m collecting data and feedback and combing over the event of the day and how it went so I can produce a better show next year.

So yes, many of you, myself included, are bummed that these events are being postponed until 2021, but I promise you it’s for very good reasons. It’s not just for your health and because of the state mandates right now, but it ensures that these fairs have a chance of putting on a really good event for you in 2021. One thing that you can look for is that some fairs might go virtual this summer if they choose to not hold an in-person event. Each fair is publicly updating their fairgoers via their website or social media platform of their choosing (most use Facebook), but this is an option that is being looked at and something you can maybe look forward too. No, you won’t have the sights and smells of fried dough or sausage sandwiches filling your nostrils mixed with a slight air of dirt and manure from the livestock exhibits, or diesel fuel from the tractor pulls, but the hope is to give you a little slice of the fair experience that we are all craving for this summer and will miss, if most (or all), of our fairs, postponed.

Want an up-to-date list of who has postponed their fair thus far? Head on over to the “MAAF - Maine Fairs” Facebook page. We put out an official statement on behalf of several fairs in early May, and have since shared public announcements from a few other fairs that have made decisions since then. Not all fairs have postponed yet this year, we still have several that are full steam ahead, so keep your eyes and ears open for the latest from them! Have any questions? Please feel free to email or direct message me and I will answer them to the best of my ability!