A full slate of virtual Great New York State Fair special events and activities are online to allow New Yorkers to safely enjoy the Fair until its anticipated live return in 2021. You can enjoy virtual visits to farms to witness live dairy cow births and live stream the Fair’s annual Butter Sculpture reveal. Activities include online contests and virtual celebrations to mark some of the Fair’s traditions. The Great New York State Fair is the nation’s first and oldest state fair, and the largest state fair in the East, according to organizers.
One of the Fair’s most anticipated attractions, the annual Butter Sculpture, is being created inside the Dairy Products Building. When the sculpture is completed on Tuesday, September 1, the American Dairy Association North East will release a time-lapse video of its creation, here. The Fair will host a make-your-own butter sculpture contest for fans online through their Facebook page. Details on the contest can be found here. ADANE is also running a butter sculpture contest; details can be found here.
The Fair will award prizes in virtual contests covering people running State Fair At Home parties, visiting brick-and-mortar stores of Fair vendors, creating wild food or drink offerings, offering great stories of their Fair fandom, and more. All contests are on the Fair’s Facebook page.
In addition, the Fair is marking the centennial celebration of Women’s Suffrage with photos on their social media sites of the suffrage movement in New York history, including an effort at the State Fair.
Other Fair partners are creating their own virtual events. The New York Animal Agriculture Coalition, which operates the popular Dairy Cow Birthing Center during the Fair, will visit many barns to show live dairy cow births in the field via the group’s Facebook page. The Fair is working with trade groups to keep alive the traditions of days of celebrations for agricultural products such as Beef Day and Dairy Day, with plans in development.
Those in search of Fair-style food can visit the Fair’s Orange Lot this weekend. Several Fair vendors will come together to offer drive-thru food service and, in the evening, socially-distanced drive-in movies.
This is only the second time since the Fair was founded in 1841 that the annual event has been canceled. The Fair was canceled from 1942-48 because the Fairgrounds was in use as a military training facility during World War II.
