Coronavirus is ruining a rite of summer in rural Pennsylvania — the county fair

Every summer, empty acres in all corners of Pennsylvania come alive, bursting with neon light and deep-fried delights. County fairs are ingrained in the commonwealth, like coal mines and dairy farms, but for the first time in more than a half-century, many organizers say opening the midways this summer seems like a long shot.

Some Pennsylvania fairs have already canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, something they haven’t done since World War II. Lycoming County would have been celebrating its 150th fair in July, but that milestone will be marked next year instead.

“Imagine trying to go a fair and social distancing, or everyone wearing a mask and trying to eat concessions. It’s hard to picture,” said Rocky Reed, president of the Lycoming County Fair. “And it’s really sad. I don’t see a light at end of the tunnel. Maybe a speck."

Nearly 100,000 people attend the fair.

Sally Nolt, president of the Pennsylvania State Association of County Fairs, said five of the 108 fairs scheduled for the coming months have been canceled, including a maple festival in Somerset County, Delaware Valley University’s A-Day in Doylestown, and the Schnecksville Community Fair in Lehigh County. Nolt said many more will likely cancel.

“No one can say today that they’ll be able to operate tomorrow,” she said. “They are all in jeopardy.”

Nolt, also secretary of the Elizabethtown Fair in Lancaster County, said that event is still scheduled for late August.

The cancellation of summer fairs and carnivals would affect a wide range of small businesses and workers, including concessionaires, demolition derby operators, and amusement companies, even teachers who own french fry businesses in the summer. Many fairs bring in performers who require nonrefundable deposits. The Bloomsburg Fair, the largest in the state, often hosts major acts, but it doesn’t commence until late September.

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Many amusement operators have already paid costly insurance premiums and picked up the tab for H-2B work visas for temporary, non-agricultural workers from other countries.

“At this point, we’ve canceled everything in May and everything in June,” said Rick Feicht, owner of Full Pull Productions. “I don’t see myself generating any revenue at all until July.”

Feicht, a retired high school principal, produces tractor pull shows, where high-performance farming equipment and semi trucks pull heavy weights on tracks. Feicht usually produces up to 50 shows per year, but “half of that would be great” this season, in light of the coronavirus. County fairs become a recreation oasis in rural areas for a week or so, he said, and that could be dangerous.

“Take Jefferson County, for example. As of this week, they had four cases and no deaths,”he said. “It doesn’t have a big population. Nobody goes there. But here comes the fair, and you’ve got people coming in from a 100-mile radius. It’s right off I-80.”

Jody Lambert, secretary of the Sullivan County Fair, said 8,000 people usually attend each summer. That’s more than Sullivan’s entire population of 6,071. In 1992, when country music legend Loretta Lynn performed, 14,000 people packed into the narrow fairgrounds by Loyalsock Creek.

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“That was a pretty special time. People came because they’d never seen someone so famous,” Lambert said.

Sullivan’s fair, slated for early September, is still on, but Lambert can’t imagine how it would operate if social distancing was still required.

“You can’t have that at a fair,” she said. “It won’t work.”

While county fair culture isn’t as strong in more suburban and urban areas of the state, spring and summer is when Ferris wheels pop up in church parking lots for annual carnivals. Churches and other nonprofits that host the carnivals often count them as major fund-raisers, including St. Denis Catholic Church’s five-decade-old Family Fun Fair in Havertown in May, It’s been canceled.

“The timing of this thing couldn’t have been any worse,” said Jeffrey Good, owner of Goodtime Amusements in Hellertown, Northampton County.

Good, president of the Pennsylvania State Showmen’s Association, said there are as many as 50 amusement companies in the state, small and large, “and they’re all in the same boat.” Good operates a medium-sized company with 25 rides, putting on one event a week for 27 weeks. Right now, his usual bookings are canceled up until mid-June.

“I’m staring down the possibility of a full year without revenue,” he said. “That’s the bleakness we’re looking at."

Good said he was unaware of any amusement operation that has received money from the Small Business Administration.

“There’s a lot of challenges here,” he said. “I just feel bad for everyone involved.”

Revenue aside, a summer without corn dogs, belly aches, and bleating goats from the 4-H barn is an emptier one for people in rural Pennsylvania. They come to county fairs to get closer, the opposite of social distancing.

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“I think the fair was one of the first dates I went on with my husband,” Lambert said.

Nolt, of the state’s fair association, said county fairs are marked on calendars for life, but also etched deeper, through generations.

“They are homecomings,” she said. “People often move away but come back, to be together.”