California State Fair canceled to stem coronavirus spread. First closure since World War II

The corn dogs, blue ribbons and roller-coaster rides will have to wait a year.

The 2020 California State Fair was canceled Friday, the latest big event on Sacramento’s entertainment calendar to fall victim to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Cal Expo board of directors voted 7-0 in a video meeting to scrub the fair’s 17-day run, with board members saying they couldn’t be sure that conditions would be safe when the event was set to begin July 17.

Despite struggles with attendance in recent years, the fair remains a major attraction in the Sacramento area. Last year’s fair drew 601,761 patrons.

“The significance of this decision — it is obviously heartfelt by all of us, not a decision that we took lightly,” said board chairman Jess Durfee.

The board’s vice chair, Rex Hime, who introduced the vote to cancel the fair, called it “a motion I didn’t think I’d ever have to make.”

It marks the first time since World War II the fair has been canceled, said Cal Expo deputy general manager Margaret Mohr.

Rick Pickering, chief executive at Cal Expo, acknowledged the anguish the decision creates for fair-goers as well as livestock exhibitors from around the state who bring their cattle, goats and other animals to the fairgrounds in search of coveted awards.

There are “thousands of competitors who planned to participate,” he said, adding that Cal Expo could try to hold a smaller event this year to promote livestock.

Pickering’s comment brought some consolation to Mike Curry of Denair, whose children were going to show hogs at the fair this year.

Curry, who attended the meeting via Zoom, said he thought Cal Expo’s decision “was premature — things could change.” But he added that he understands the enormous logistical difficulties of planning a major fair during a pandemic.

“I’m not in their shoes,” he said.

The cancellation represents a potentially major financial blow to Cal Expo, whose troubles have already prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration to propose a $2.3 million taxpayer subsidy to prevent the organization from going insolvent and shutting down the fair for good.

Cal Expo gets more than half its annual revenue from the fair. Hime said the cancellation will mean more financial pressure on the agency and he said he hopes state leaders “will help us meet our needs.”

With the state’s finances turned completely upside down by the coronavirus crisis, it wasn’t clear whether Newsom’s administration will retain the subsidy when it unveils its revised budget plan in early May.

Newsom’s original budget would have given Cal Expo a $1.5 million one-time rescue and $750,000 to study long-term solutions for Cal Expo’s problems. Although Cal Expo is a state agency and received about $15 million for deferred-maintenance projects in last year’s budget, the state has never stepped in to supplement its operating budget.

Cal Expo ran a $4 million surplus last year, due largely to cost-cutting, but it’s clear the agency has been faltering.

In the early 2000s, the fair routinely drew 1 million guests or more a year. As attendance has waned, Cal Expo last year rebranded the event as the California State Fair and Food Festival, which sparked a modest increase in attendance from 2018.

The decision came the same week that the Sacramento County Fair was canceled as well.

This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 1:59 PM.