GEDDES, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — On the last day of the 2021 New York State Fair, Troy Waffner, fair director, talked to NewsChannel 9 about the changes this year saw from previous years, what worked well, and how vendors have done given the circumstances.
When asked if the extended 18-day fair was a better option than the original length of 13 days, Waffner said if you took a straw poll, vendors would vote “overwhelmingly in favor” of a 13-day fair. He said that workload and stress on vendors and employees is a big contributing factor.
“If it’s 13 days versus 18 days, I think 13 days was a good run of a fair. Like I said, very sustainable. I think it would be a wise move to go back to it,” Waffner said.
Waffner said that the New York State Fair also shares vendors with other county fairs, like the Erie and Delaware county fairs.
When former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo initially extended the fair to 18 days, Waffner said some vendors needed to pull out of the State Fair this year due to staffing and timing strains and overlap of county fairs.
Even though the 13 days is a much easier time span for the fair, Waffner says this year was still a good run.
You know, after the first day, I thought this was going to be a low-attended fair. It just had a different feel to it, but you know, we got through it and we had a couple good weekend runs and you know, we’re going to go in a rebuilding phase and whatever days we end up with, we’re going to make sure it looks and feels like a normal fair again.
Troy Waffner, New York State Fair Director
