After missing 2020 due to the pandemic, the Southeast Alaska State Fair in Haines plans to return this year. The board voted unanimously last month to put together some version of the annual event, according to the Chilkat Valley News in Haines.
But it will not be a normal year. Southeast Alaska State Fair Executive Director Kari Johnson said events are likely to be smaller and will certainly be outdoors.
“We are hopeful,” Johnson told KHNS public radio. “Yes, there’s going to be one. It might be big, it might be small. … I think we’re kind of waiting to see what happens.”
The size of the fair will depend on health safety, quarantines and whether the Canadian border reopens—it’s been closed for nearly a year.
About 70% of the attendance at the fair’s Beer Fest comes from the Yukon Territory — that’s what makes it financially viable, Johnson told the radio station. The fair’s board has put off that decision until at least February.
She said it isn’t likely to be a big money-making season for the nonprofit organization that runs the fair, but the goal is to put on as many events as possible.
“We will have something during the weekend of the fair, we’re just not sure what it will be yet but, by golly, the gates will be open,” fair spokesperson Amanda Randles told the town’s weekly newspaper.
Johnson said a big question mark is whether musical acts from down south will be able to attend if quarantine requirements are still in place. “It could be we have a normal fair and we can bring entertainers, or it could be a local thing where we’re doing local entertainers and not having any travelers here,” she said.
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