A year without Grange Fair

CENTRE COUNTY, Pa. (WJAC) - The Centre County Grange and Encampment Fair was scheduled to begin its 146th annual event this week, but those plans came to a halt because of COVID-19. The cancellation is impacting the local economy, as well as the people who look forward to it every year.

Grange Fair President Ben Haagen says a long line of cars showed up to the fairgrounds this past weekend to pick up souvenirs, "People miss the fair. I got to talk to a lot of people as they were coming in. There was some tears shed and when they turned away from me, a couple times, I got a little bit teary-eyed as well."

Haagen says it was a difficult decision to make, describing a year without Grange Fair as a loss for the community. He continues to say it was a tough call that had to be made with a fair of this scale and duration, "When you have 200,000 people on a fairground for 10 days, there's no way you can social distance. Or even our trailers, we were required to put them at 40 feet apart."

He adds that this void in the community hits close to home for him, after growing up at the fair and visiting it with his family annually since the year he was born. With 66 years at the fair under his belt, this is the first August he won't be spending the week at Grange Park, among 1,000 tenters and 1,500 campers.

This cancellation is reaching beyond the emotional impact, though, as it takes a toll on the local businesses, "Horse shows that are run throughout the year [have] an economic impact of between $16-20 million. It has an impact on our community, our community businesses, our restaurants, our hotels."

He explains the fair is feeling the effects, too, "Grange Fair has a $3.1 million budget, that money is not rolling in. We're a 501C3, so whatever we take in gets spent back out. I think we spend over $700,000 of that in wages for the week of the fair and for our employees."

The fairgrounds, usually buzzing with entertainment and people as the last remaining encampment fair in the nation, are now seeing the first year without Grange Fair. Haagen says committee members are already planning to make the fair bigger and better in 2021.

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