New Hampshire’s fair season is in question following a decision by directors not to open the Sandwich Fair, which has been held on Columbus Day weekend since the 1880’s and traditionally winds up the season.
It is the third of New Hampshire’s 11 county or agricultural fairs to be shut by the COVID-19 outbreak.
“With this virus and then the normal flu in the the fall we cannot in good faith bring 30,000 people into our town,” said Dan Peaslee, president of the Sandwich Fair Board of Directors. “We’ve been working on this for about 6 to 7 weeks, going back and forth … but we just can’t take that chance.”
Many fairs, including Hopkinton on Labor Day weekend and Deerfield in early October, are still on the calendar.
“At this point it’s a wait and see what’s going to go on for the next month or two before they make any decision. As of right now, things are moving forward,” said John Pyteras, who works for the Hopkinton Fair board of directors.
Richard Pitman, vice president of the Deerfield Fair Association, said that group was going ahead with its annual event. “We have no intentions of cutting it short unless the governor asks us to,” Pitman said. “Some of the summer horse shows we rent the grounds out to have been postponed, spread out to August, but they’re not in the cancellation mode yet.”
Pitman said the group has been signing contracts with vendors and other organizations for the fair. “So far no one’s asked to bail out. We’re hoping that it is resolved by then,” he said.
And New England’s biggest agricultural fair, the Big E in West Springfield, Mass., is still slated to run from Sept. 18 to Oct. 4, although a large number of events scheduled to take place on its grounds over the summer have been canceled.
The Stratham Fair, traditionally the first of the state’s fairs, has canceled this year, as have the Cheshire Fair in July and Lancaster Fairs in August. The fate of state’s largest annual gathering, Motorcycle Week in Laconia, is up in the air. Gov. Chris Sununu said Thursday that the event has not been canceled but expressed concern whether conditions in mid-June would allow the week-long event to be safely held.
Laconia City Councilors are scheduled to hear a request to move Motorcycle Week to Aug. 22-30 if it cannot be held in June.
In Sandwich, Peaslee said this will be only the second time in the fair’s history that it hasn’t run. The first time was 1919 when it shut because of the Spanish Flu pandemic.
“We asked ourselves, what would happen that could change our mind? The only thing that could do it is if there is an approved vaccine available before October, and we all realized that wasn’t going to happen,” Peaslee said.
Peaslee said the Sandwich Fair board of directors was going to wait for next week’s update on Sununu’s stay-at-home orders, but logistics forced his hand.
“We have $35,000 in advertising that has to be realized in the next couple of weeks, and there are vendors in the process of getting fired up or not,” he said. “They can’t keep waiting.”
Peaslee has a long history with the fair: Both his father and uncle helped run it before him, and he has been on the board for 13 years, with a decade as president. He said the board will begin working on the 2021 fair, including construction of a new building.
Canceling the fair will have a big effect on the economy of Sandwich, which has about 1,300 people. A local restaurant owner said on the town discussion board that the eatery probably will not survive.
“I’ve had angry people screaming at me, saying I made a mistake, I’ve had people saying thank you,” said Peaslee. “I would be very happy in October if there was no reason to cancel and I have egg on my face.”
David Brooks can be reached at dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek
