March 29, 2024

Fairs forge forward for 2021

HENRY, Ill. — By the time Tracy Byrd performs at the 100th Marshall-Putnam Fair on July 15, Drew Herridge, the concert director for the Marshall-Putnam Fair Board, will have been waiting close to two years to see this concert.

“We started talking to him in August 2019. We originally had him for the 2020 fair. That was canceled. So, I have been holding on since August 2019, trying to get Tracy Byrd to come to Henry, Illinois,” Herridge said.

Across Illinois, fair boards are making plans and hoping that this fair season looks much, much different than the 2020 season.

“We’re positive and we’re looking forward and I think the fair industry in general is looking forward. The fairs I have talked to, everybody seems to be making plans for a fair in 2021,” said Ken Tyrrell, president of the Illinois Association of Agricultural Fairs.

Tyrrell not only serves as the IAAF president, he also is on the Sandwich Fair Association Board. The Sandwich Fair, which starts on the Wednesday after Labor Day, is moving ahead with plans for the 2021 event, Tyrrell said. The 2021 Sandwich Fair is scheduled Sept. 8-12.

“We recently voted to move forward. We are starting to send letters out to vendors and people who display at the fair,” Tyrrell said.

By the time Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order for the state, which took effect on March 21, 2020, planning was well underway for the 2020 Marshall-Putnam Fair.

“We start planning the month after the fair ends. So, we were planning in August 2019 for the 2020 fair. It’s a yearlong commitment of planning and getting everybody together to get ready for the next fair. So, it started out as normal,” Herridge said.

Even when COVID-19 cases started to build and businesses, including restaurants and hotels, started to close, Herridge and the others on the Marshall-Putnam Fair Board kept up their planning processes and tried to stay hopeful.

“We started see the restrictions coming and we were a little worried. We thought how could this last all the way to July? At that time, nobody knew what the future would hold,” Herridge said.

Decision Time

Like hundreds of other fairs across the state, including the Illinois State Fair and the DuQuoin State Fair, the Marshall-Putnam Board faced a difficult decision as the 2020 fair drew closer and restrictions tightened.

In addition to the country concert, the Marshall-Putnam Fair also hosts the Lucas Oil America’s Pull, a tractor and truck pull, along with a demolition derby and other events that draw crowds.

“We needed to give enough time to our vendors, to fans, to prepare not to come. We have people who come from all over the country for our tractor pull. We wanted to give people advance notice if we weren’t going to have a fair, but we didn’t want to announce, months in advance, that, hey, we’re not even going to try,” Herridge said.

In June, the board decided to cancel the fair and put its efforts into getting ready for 2021, the centennial of the founding of the Marshall-Putnam Fair Association and the first official fair.

Tyrrell said after the Sandwich Fair Association Board made the decision to cancel, he heard from other fairs that met and made the same decision.

“I was getting calls on a daily basis from other fairs. Once it started, it was like dominoes, everybody just folded their tents and went home. Everybody just held their breath and took a year off,” Tyrrell said.

With the cancellation of fairs, fair boards throughout the state, along with the various vendors and shows, suffered financially.

“It’s been a struggle for everybody. Luckily, the premium reimbursements came through, so the fairs did have some money there and there were some other opportunities out there for some, the Paycheck Protection Program, and every little bit helps,” Tyrrell said.

At the Marshall-Putnam Fairgrounds, the struggle was real — but help from friends made a tough year less so.

“Whether we have a fair or not, the fair board has expenses. We have a very large fairgrounds. We have utilities. We have the fair for one week and for those other 51 weeks, there are still expenses we’ve got to keep up. We had some sponsors still donate money as they normally would as if there had been a fair. That was amazing. Because we couldn’t have a fair, we weren’t expecting anyone to give any money at all because we couldn’t really advertise for them, but they still were willing to give and it was just so incredible, especially as hard hit as businesses were in 2020,” Herridge said.

Circuit Breaker

For Tyrrell and the Sandwich Fair Board, getting through 2020 included some belt-tightening.

“It takes a tremendous amount of money to run the Sandwich Fair and when you have a year that you don’t generate revenue, any revenue to speak of, it’s tough. We laid some people off. Our office secretary, we basically gave her the year off, and our office manager went to half time working from home. I think that’s probably the case with every fair in the state. They looked around and tried to cut corners and save a little money wherever they could,” Tyrrell said.

Tyrrell said he hasn’t heard that any fair in Illinois decided to close permanently. He said he also feels for those in Sandwich and others who depend on the fair for income during fair time.

“The sad thing is — and it’s this way in all the towns with a fair — there are people in town who count on the revenue from the Sandwich Fair, all our vendors, our display people, others, like our tent supplier,” Tyrrell said.

Tyrrell said he is looking forward to the 2021 Sandwich Fair and has heard from different attractions that they, too, are anticipating getting on the county fair circuit.

“I haven’t heard of anyone folding. North American Midway Amusements said they did not work one event all year in 2020. They parked the equipment and started maintaining and they said they are looking forward to this year,” Tyrrell said.

Herridge and the rest of the Marshall-Putnam board are planning for the 100th anniversary of their fair.

“We are working on ways to commemorate that. We are asking for Marshall-Putnam Fair memorabilia, pictures, souvenirs from past fairs, whatever people have from past fairs, to create a museum-type exhibit,” Herridge said.

In addition to the country concert, Herridge said the grandstand events include harness racing, the demo derby, the Lucas Oil America’s Pull and a Sunday grandstand event to be announced.

“Everything else, our exhibits, our beer tent, our livestock shows, will go on as normal,” Herridge said.

The fair runs July 14-18. Tickets for the country concert can be purchased online at the fair’s website, marshallputnamfair.org.

More information about the 2021 Marshall-Putnam Fair is available from the website or by calling the fair office at 309-364-2814.

Information on the 2021 Sandwich Fair, including exhibitor and vendor information, is available at www.sandwichfair.com, or by calling the fair office at 815-786-2159. However, the fair office does not currently have regular staffed office hours.

Jeannine Otto

Jeannine Otto

Field Editor