News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The 94th Putnam County Fair stands as the latest victim of COVID-19. The fair postponed because officials simply could not find ways to meet all safety requirements.
“There are several things related to spacing of people and issues related to masks, temperature checks at the gate and things like that,” Fair Board Vice President Thom Steger said. “We just couldn’t figure out how to have the type of community involvement that you want to have in fair and the interaction between people. That is, what the fair is all about.”
Steger said carnival rides, one of the big draws for any fair, have not been cleared to resume operations. Even though the fair remains about two months away, Steger said the fair board could not predict whether rides would be an option in August.
The community’s economic health also stood as an obstacle with a $460,000 operating budget to cover. Steger, who leads the sponsorship work of the board, said a lot of local businesses are hurting.
“We just weren’t sure that we could ask the community businesses who are currently hurting and maybe have employees laid off or not operating to provide any any of that normal funding,” Steger said. “And then we’re also just concerned that a lot of our lot of the folks in our community are currently in a unemployment situation or some kind of limited employment. And we just weren’t sure that we could even have the kind of crowds that would take to to pay for all of the events that we normally run.”
Steger said the fair board must also pay most of its expenses up front, putting the financial commitment ahead of the August event.
“We’ve made a full financial commitment before anything ever happens,” Steger said, “We’ve put money in the bank to try to prepare for contingencies and make sure that we don’t end up in a bad situation. But, yes, certainly, certainly that was a consideration.”
The board considered other options including an agricultural-only focus, taking the fair back to its roots. But Steger said it came back to concerns over the health of residents and whether residents, for example ag judges, would feel safe.
“Nobody wanted to put on the fair more than the fair,” Steger said. “We we all love it. We work about 12 months out of the year, trying to put on the best quality fair we can. And yet we I think we all felt a sense of loss.”
The work that has gone on this year will not be lost. Steger said it will be used as the basis for next year’s event.
“We’ve got a really, really good fair planned,” Steger said. “As everyone’s aware, we won the award for the triple-A category at the Tennessee Association Of Fairs this year. We’re competing for the top position champion and we had a fair program that would deliver.”
