Adams County Fairfest parade canceled

HASTINGS, Neb. (KSNB) - There won’t be a parade this year during Adams County Fairfest.

Fair officials posted on its Facebook page on Wednesday that due to a lack of entries that event was canceled. The post has since been taken down due to attacking comments regarding the decision.

The last time Fairfest was able to host a parade in downtown Hastings was in 2019.

The parade took a hit due to COVID in 2020 and lack of entries in 2021 led to its cancellation.

Fairfest officials said it was a very hard decision for the board to make, but they hope to get community input to be able to have something in the future.

Adams County Agricultural Society President Scott Schneider shared this message on Friday regarding the parade’s cancellation.

The Adams County Agricultural Society (ACAS) in January 2022 set up an AC Fairfest parade subcommittee. The subcommittee knew that there were going to be some challenges as there are other events going on in the surrounding area. The subcommittee had some great ideas and these ideas were explored and looked into. They ended up deciding to go back to having the AC Fairfest Parade on the Saturday prior to Fairfest week. The subcommittee brought back to the board that if we could get a minimum of at least 20 pre-entries for the parade and then a few more entries the day of the parade, the parade should work. They wanted to set a minimum for pre-entries so that the parade wouldn’t be only 10 or 15 minutes long due to lack of entries. There are always guests that register the day of but in the past that has never been a large number. We wanted to make sure it would be worth the public’s time to come out and enjoy the parade.
At the May 2022 ACAS board meeting a motion was brought to the board to have the AC to have the AC Fairfest Parade as long as we got the 20 pre-entries by June 24, 2022 by 5 p.m., the motion was voted on and passed. The Board also wanted to continue to give out prizes like we have in the past for 1st place in each of the divisions for the parade. The Fairgrounds office then got things ready to send out to the public. Parade information was sent out via social media, the fairgrounds website, the fairgrounds email list and the 4H/extension email list. We also invited back anyone that had pre-registered the year before.
On June 24, 2022 around 5:10 p.m. the pre-entries were counted and there were not 20 pre-entries, so unfortunately that meant no AC Fairfest Parade this year. It was very disappointing that we were not going to have the parade. The ACAS Board is already looking into what we can do next year. If you have any ideas, we would love to hear them. We have set up an email so you send your ideas in: parade@adamscountyfairgrounds.com. If you would like to help volunteer for the parade committee, please send your info to this email so that we can contact you.
Scott Schneider, Adams County Agricultural Society President

Fairfest runs from July 13- July 17. More information can be found HERE.

Adams County Fairfest parade canceled

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