Long Island Fair

The Long Island Fair

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Our website is under reconstruction, so come back frequently as we build a new and better site.

In case you are interested the photograph at the top of our website is from an early 20th century double-width post card of the Fair when it was held in Mineola.

Welcome

The 2011 Fair

What's New

OK the weather was not the best, but if you didn't come you missed out on some great entertainment. We added Blue Grass to our traditional music, chances to win cash prizes in crosss-cut sawing, guessng the weight of the largest pumpkin or the number of beans in a jar, and great displays of crafts, vegetables and horticulture. Continued below

Check back frequently we will be adding 2012 Fair details weekly.

Why stop at just seeing the Long Island Fair? See every county fair in the state plus the New York State Fair for one price. Click here for the details.

“Long Island Fair” is the registered Service Mark of The Agricultural Society of Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Inc.

The 2011 Fair

To all of you who completed questionaires or talked to our survey takers, thank you. We'll try to answer some of the questions raised here.

One of the most frequent questions was what happened to the jugglers? Two things happened, first Sean and his accomplice had hinted for several years that our fair was the last fair they were doing, they do have real jobs, and if we didn't ask them back they would not be upset. At the same time, interest had developed in bringing bluegrass music to the Fair. So we decided to try that for the 2011 Fair. Bluegrass will probably be back again for the 2012, and we will try to find another juggling act to fill in between music sets.

What happened to the "Flying Horses" carousel? Well the simple truth is that the County layoffs in July 2011 resulted in the crew that normally puts the carousel together being let go. With them went the knowledge of how to assemble the carousel. Subsequently we found the original assembly manual and expect to have the "Flying Horses" back for the 2012 Fair.

Why didn't I get a premium book in time to enter? The answer to that is a little complicated. Ther Fair was earlier this year in order to avoid conflicts with religious observances in late September. The County layoffs in July 2011 resulted in the loss of some people who were very important to the Premium Department. The loss of these people meant some revisions had to be made to the premium book at a time when it should have been going to the printer. We were able to mail the books by mid August, but coupled with the earlier Fair dates and unexplained lapses on the part of the post office, books were delivered late. We

received complaints that participants didn't receive their premium books until after the cutoff for delivering the entry forms. We did extend the cut-off date in an attempt to solve that problem. We also include in the mailing list test addresses to see when the books are delivered. Several were delivered in October and at least one was delivered on November 15th. The Post Office has promised to do better in 2013.

Why don't we go back to holding the Fair on Columbus Day weekend? We originally moved away from Columbus Day weekend to avoid the congestion of so many competing events that weekend. As time has passed, we find that all the fall weekends are congested and we may go back to Columbus Day weekend. However we can not do that for 2012 as Nassau County has committed the use of the Exhibition Hall for the month of October. which brings us to a question that needs input from our visitors. We are the New York State County Fair with the latest opening date. All the other fairs have ended by Labor Day weekend. Should we join with the rest of the State and run the fair in July or August instead of either late September or early October? Should we go back to Columbus Day weeked? Should we open on two consecutive weekends? Please sent us your comments to lifair@lifair.org.

2012 Fair Dates

September 27-30, 2012