DOSWELL, Va. – Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the State Fair of Virginia has been canceled.
Organizers said they analyzed options for a State Fair but since Virginia is still in Phase Three with a cap of 1,000 guests at events there was no “realistic financial model.”
They said, “Planning for the safety of guests during the Covid-19 pandemic is a complex and ever-changing situation. We took our time looking at all of the different ways to make the event work under the current COVID-19 limitations. That included attendance, social distancing, face masks, temperature checks and other CDC and public health guidelines. We considered countless scenarios and found that a lot of these options were not only not feasible, but under the severe restrictions, the annual Fair would not be the traditional event that our community loves.
There were a million different scenarios that we considered; social distancing at the carnival, waiting for restroom sanitizations regularly, standing in line for food or merchandise, wearing face masks in hot weather, limiting crowd sizes at concerts, one way aisles, making hand sanitizer with the proper alcohol content available everywhere you turn, the list goes on.”
The State Fair of Virginia usually happens every year and celebrates the best of Virginia’s past, present and future through scholarship initiatives, creative programming and a focus on the commonwealth’s agriculture and natural resources industries.
Organizers said the Virginia Farm Bureau Board of Directors made the decision to cancel.
