The Whiteside County Fair has been canceled, the fair board said Thursday.
“Illinois’s 5-Phase Restore Illinois Plan specifically addresses fairs and festivals,” the fair board said in a Facebook post. “In order to be able to have a fair, our region must be in Phase 5; currently we are in Phase 4. The requirements for entering Phase 5 include ‘a vaccine, effectively and widely available treatment, or the elimination of new cases over a sustained period of time through herd immunity or other factors.’ Unfortunately, Illinois is simply not there yet.”
The fair board said it, “held out as long as we could to make this decision” and had hoped to hold the fair in August.
“We had genuine hopes of an improvement in the situation that would allow us to hold the 2020 fair in August,” they said in the post. “Simply put, our ability to have the Fair this year is not possible. We exhausted every avenue we could to try to make it happen this year, but the circumstances do not allow for it.”
The fair board said in the post that the fair will be back in August 2021 and will be “more than ready to celebrate the 150th Fair with all of you!”