Gov Cuomo Announces New York State Fair Is Cancelled Due To COVID

Governor Andrew Cuomo made it official today, the New York State Fair has become the most recent cancellation due to COVID-19. The cancellation is no surprise to most New Yorkers, but it is certainly disappointing.

Governor Cuomo has been hinting that the New York State fair would be canceled for several months now. When Governor Cuomo visited Syracuse in April, he mentioned the possibility of the cancellation due to COVID-19 and the health risks associated with it. Even though hospitalizations and COVID-19 deaths continue to decline, Governor Cuomo is still restricting group attendance to a maximum of 50 people. This means that there’s no way that he would allow the fair to occur.

The state fair was scheduled for August 21 through September 7 in Syracuse, but it simply will not happen this year. In January Governor Cuomo announced with excitement, that the annual fair would be extended from 13 days to 18 days. The state has invested a lot of money into improving and expanding the fairgrounds, spending more than $120 million on it. The state fair is always an extremely popular summertime event for New Yorkers. In 2019 the fair recorded its highest attendance with 1,329,275 visitors.

This is the first time in more than 70 years that the New York state fair has been cancelled. In 1942 the fair was canceled and did not resume until 1948. In the 1940s the fairgrounds was used as a military base during World War II.

Although we realize the importance of public health and safety, not having the state fair is still disappointing. Until there is a cure or a vaccination for COVID-19, we will all have to make sacrifices, and this is one of them.