The 2020 fair season wasn’t the greatest. Most fairs started getting canceled at the beginning of June, while some were even calling things off in April or May. This left a lot of kids with animals and nowhere to show them.
“We had about six fairs that were able to host some type of fair that was open to the public,” Jayme Buttke with the Wisconsin Association of Fairs explained, “We had another seven or eight fairs that held a modified fair. So it was an exhibitor only type of experience.” Besides that handful of fairs, the rest of them decided to keep things closed until this year. According to the Wisconsin Association of Fairs, in 2019 we had 1.6 million people visit our county fairs and in 2020 we only had about 68,000 visitors.
As for the fairs that proceeded as normal, Buttke said that the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. She mentioned that it was mainly from people saying “thank you for having something that we can go to that our life can be somewhat routine again,” Buttke explained. People were just happy to have something to do this summer.
Every county fair was still impacted by COVID-19 in one way or another, even if they did hold the fair. For the fairs that were held, the attendance wasn’t as high as normal. For the fairs that didn’t happen, they lost out on money for organizations in the community. “It’s not only on the fair itself. It’s also on the ripple effect of the different ingredients that go into making a fair,” Buttke said. She brought up how your carnival, your food vendors, and the attendees are all contributing to different service clubs in the community. Normally, those organizations and clubs get some type of profit from selling food at the fair, which for most, didn’t happen this past year.
There were a lot of questions surrounding why some fairs canceled so early and Buttke said that one main reason was because of the contracts that would’ve had to be signed. She commended the entertainment industry for working so well with the fairs because the majority of the entertainment allowed county fairs to roll their contracts over to 2021. This means that a lot of the entertainment that was planned for the 2020 fairs will be going on this year instead.
Buttke said that the contracts weren’t even the biggest hurdle for the fairs, but government assistance was. “There have been federal grants…we had very few fairs that had qualified for any financial assistance,” Buttke said. She went on to explain how fairs were one of the few areas that got completely missed for grants. She said that there were smaller events that were canceled, such as music festivals in the state who qualified for assistance, but county fairs were denied financial help. According to Buttke, a lot of fairs applied for entertainment grants and didn’t receive one.
Luckily, she said that the International Association of Fairs and Expositions is working on a national grant process to help out fairs across the United States. The only issue is that it’s pretty slow-moving at this point. The grants haven’t seen a big backing by Senators, but she’s still hopeful that it’s moving in the right direction. She said that one big concern is that so far only a few states have been helped out such as Ohio, Iowa, and Tennessee.
Buttke said that fairs should be focusing on what’s truly needed for 2021 to make the fair a success even with less money. That’s one reason she said that having the agriculture side of a fair isn’t enough on its own. Yes, agriculture is the basis of the county fair and it’s important, but you also need the entertainment and the vendors so you can sell tickets. The profit then goes to help pay for things like judges, shavings, clean up, and all the other aspects that create a successful fair.
She said that as of now, county fairs are optimistic and have been working hard to make sure they can move forward. Buttke said that the Wisconsin Association of Fairs played a big role in that as well. The association spent fifteen weeks talking with fair members asking them questions and trying to prepare a safe fair experience for everyone involved.
“They’re moving forward. They’re planning their fair. Their radar is just higher on the things that they need to be mindful of,” Buttke added, “I think the biggest thing is the communication between their local health departments…it’s not a once a month type of thing…we’re talking to health departments weekly, if not a couple of times a week.”
Buttke does warn fairgoers that they shouldn’t be expecting the same type of fair that we were seeing in 2019. “I think it’s going to be a hybrid of those that canceled and those that were able to go on and what did that look like.” Her advice for county fairs is to be as flexible as possible this year because you never really know what’s going to happen.
She predicts that we’ll see more fairs proceed with their plans this year. “In my heart, I believe that more fairs are going to happen,” Buttke warns, “they’re still going to be modified fairs. They’re going to play with that balance of what’s going to keep them profitable to be here for the long-term.”
Buttke understands that even if all of the county fairs are held this year, that doesn’t mean people will be forced to go to them. “If you’re uncomfortable going to a larger event, that’s okay and we respect that as well. We want everyone to be safe…it’s okay for those who want to come out and it’s okay for those that don’t.” Buttke’s hopeful that we can eventually get back to the attendance numbers we’ve had at fairs in the past. Bottom line is that we most likely will see a majority of Wisconsin county fairs proceed this year. Fair season is back!
You can listen to the full interview with Buttke, right here.
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