GREENBRIER COUNTY, W.Va. — In just more than six months, the 2021 State Fair of West Virginia is scheduled to open in Greenbrier County, what will be the first State Fair since 2019.
“We have our fingers crossed,” said Kelly Tuckwiller-Collins, CEO of the State Fair of West Virginia.
State Fair dates of Aug. 12 – Aug. 21, 2021 were announced in early January with the theme of “Brighter Days Are Ahead.”
By the beginning of February, performers had been booked.
Show announcements were expected to start in early March for a tentative schedule that was subject to change depending on COVID-19 and came with a lot of unknowns about safety requirements.
“It’s easier for us to plan the fair as a whole and cut back. There’s so much that goes into making the State Fair happen every year that we have to plan it as much as we can in advance,” Tuckwiller-Collins said.
“That’s not to say that there are not going to be some major changes because we can’t predict the future and we so harshly learned that in 2020.”
Last year, the State Fair was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Originally, plans were being developed for a possible reworked fair to comply with COVID-19 protocols but that idea was dropped completely in June as case numbers increased.
The cancellation was the first for the State Fair since 1942 to 1945 for World War II.
As a scaled-down alternative, a “Taste of the Fair” was offered in Fairlea through Summer 2020 featuring some traditional State Fair food and beverage vendors.
In December, donations were accepted at a drive-thru holiday display at the Fairlea location.
Both events helped generated needed revenues, Tuckwiller-Collins said.
Lately, the Greenbrier County Health Department has been using the State Fair location for weekly vaccination clinics.
“It’s giving us a little bit of hope to see these vaccinations and our local COVID numbers are actually decreasing, so those are good signs for us and good signs for the fairs and festivals in the state,” she said.
Her prediction was there would be some kind of State Fair in 2021.
“We just don’t know what it’ll look like at this point,” Tuckwiller-Collins said.
“There’s a lot of pent-up demand. People who are comfortable are going to want to get out and we’re going to want to to be able to set up an event that’s safe for them to do so.”