SHAWANO COUNTY, WI (WTAQ) – While county fairs across the state are pulling the plug this year, the 139th Shawano County Fair will be held as normally as possible.
The fair will have some restrictions in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Bingo games will not be held, but there are plans to have local bands on a pair of stages. The fair and fireworks will also look pretty normal, but organizers are still taking precautions.
“We’ll have signs up, sanitizing stations up – and now we’re getting extra wash stations and all that kind of stuff,” says Promotions Manager Brad Luepke, “We’ve been told for months that ‘We want to make adult decisions,’ so now I guess it’s on them to make the adult decisions.”
Luepke estimated about 62,000-65,000 people attend the fair each year, depending on the weather.
“Probably see a little dip, but I don’t expect it to be a glaring dip,” Luepke says, “Especially with the reaction we’ve gotten through social media and phone calls – everybody seems elated that we are trying to move forward with it.”
As for proper social distancing during the fair and fireworks with that many people, organizers say attendees tend to spread out throughout the grounds anyways.
Luepke also works with the Shawano Speedway, which recently reopened to races and fans. He thinks that experience will help as the county prepares for the fair.
“We have gone through the process of opening something bigger up already,” Luepke says, “I think that helped us out a little bit because we sort of have guidelines we’ve gone through already, we got a little experience in that, so I think that’s going to help us open up.”
While the plan is to push ahead with the event, fair organizers are still working on the finer details – hoping for some input on how to make things even better.
“We’re trying to call our superintendents, all our vendors, all our nonprofit stands – and get people in. We want to get their feedback and we want to put a plan in place going from there,” Luepke tells WTAQ News, “It’s probably going to mean their year. They probably lost a lot of smaller fundraising events throughout the year, so being able to help them get through a year financially was one of the big decisions.”
The Shawano County Fair is set for September 2nd-7th.
