Pageants postponed until next year
The first local fair of the year — the Cloverdale Citrus Fair — is continuing on this year, albeit taking on a different form. The 129th Cloverdale Citrus Fair is going to be a mix of virtual and drive-thru events over the course of the regular Citrus Fair weekend, Feb. 12-14.
“We never thought that we would be in this position here in February — we thought that over the summer and over the fall, we’d be back — but here we are. We’re going to make the best of it,” said Katie Fonsen Young, chief operating officer of the fairgrounds.
While a significant portion of the fair is going to be virtual — the Baby Derby, a parade float display, the talent showcase, 4-H and FFA livestock shows and the exhibits — its in-person, drive-thru components include a fair food event that could potentially also include entertainment and livestock.
Drive-thru fair
The in-person portion of this year’s fair will let folks experience fair food in all of its glory, while also being safe and socially distanced. From 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. throughout the duration of the fair, a drive-thru Fair Food Frenzy will be in the main lot, which usually houses a fair carnival.
The fairgrounds held a similar Food Frenzy in November. Encouraged by that experience, they decided to continue with drive-thru fair food.
“We’ve invited all of our food vendors that traditionally participate in the fair weekend. Not all of them are able to come … so we won’t see every single food vendor that traditionally comes to the fair, but a lot of our local food vendors are going to participate. They want to bring in food that you wouldn’t normally get in town — it’s going to be corn dogs, cotton candy, candy apples, all of that fun stuff that you wouldn’t normally have any other time of the year,” Fonsen Young said.
Once folks drive up to the fair (masked, of course), they’ll be handed a disposable menu and then they’ll be asked to drive up to a kiosk where they’ll give a cashier their order. From there, they’ll go to whichever food vendor they are picking up from, and a food runner will bring them their food.
Fonsen Young said that people are encouraged to come for lunch, for dinner or for both, since the food event spans lunch time to dinner time.
As people drive into the fairgrounds, they’ll also see floats positioned on the outskirts of the space, making it somewhat of a drive-thru parade experience.
“It’s challenging to plan outdoor events in February,” Fonsen Young said, adding that while nothing is confirmed, the fair is hoping to have other things set up for people to enjoy while waiting in their vehicles. “We’re hoping, if the weather looks like it’s going to be nice, we may be able to also add some entertainment … I thought it would be fun to have a little stage where people could drive around, roll their windows down and listen to one of their favorite local bands that they haven’t seen or heard in a long time.”
Additionally, a local 4-H group has offered to bring their animals so kids could see some animals while they sit in the car.
While the exhibit portion of the fair is largely online, exhibitors will also have a chance to bring in their submitted items for possible display at the fair, weather permitting.
“We thought if somebody is comfortable with their item being displayed outside, they could bring it, so people can drive-thru and see their entries, which can be fun,” she said.
The regular sculptures that are usually created for the fair by local service groups will have a smaller role in this year’s fair, but some groups are still planning on creating citrus sculpture boards.
Instead of having people in a group all come together in-person to make one sculpture, participants can put together a portion of the board at home and then bring it to the fair, where they’ll be put together on a board. Additionally, some of the citrus requirements have been eased this year, since the sculptures won’t be judged for major cash prizes.
“We’re not able to do the big prize money for the major citrus exhibits or that kind of thing, but I think people just want to show their community spirit and celebrate the Citrus Fair,” Fonsen Young said, noting that some people and groups have expressed interest in continuing to make the sculptures.
“We figured anything goes — let’s celebrate your favorite thing about the Citrus Fair. If you put together a sculpture board, that’s great, we’ll still do the viewer’s choice rating system and we can have those on display as people drive through the fairgrounds,” she said.
“It’s kind of like a drive-thru museum-slash-event,” Fonsen Young said.
Going virtual
Some entertainment, like the talent showcase and the cabaret, is heading online this year. The fair’s talent show, usually a mainstage showcase of people and groups of all ages and talents, is going to take the form of a talent showcase video montage this year.
“People from young to old, no matter what talent they have, they can sign up on the website and upload a video of them doing their talent and then we’ll put together a talent showcase montage online. We’ll put them together in a video format and people can view them and celebrate one another. We’re hoping that they can come through the fair food event, get their dinner for the evening and go home and watch the talent showcase,” Fonsen Young.
The fair’s celebrated cabaret show is getting a similar treatment. The cabaret usually sells out of tickets. This year, however, a video is being put together to showcase the best of the show, Fonsen Young said, hopefully encouraging people to get excited for next year.
Also joining the virtual entertainment fun is the annual Baby Derby. During the fair weekend, people who’ve signed up for Baby Derby time slots will come to the fair and have their baby crawl by itself as part of the derby. From there, videos of the babies will be cut together and a full derby montage will be made.
“That will give us time in between babies to sanitize the mat,” Fonsen Young said. “We will run these time trials almost, and then from there we’ll put together a video montage of the babies and announce the winner of the fastest baby.”
In between checking out virtual entertainment, people will be able to peruse the fair’s website for all of the virtually-entered exhibits, parade float displays and animal showings.
Saved for next year
While many of the events and different pieces of the fair that folks know and love are making an appearance this year, some are on hold until a more regular fair can be held — hopefully, in 2022.
Besides fair rides, the annual Citrus Fair Queen and Citrus Fair Princess competitions won’t be happening during this year’s fair, and neither will the Lily Lemon and Oran Orange contests.
“We gave every element of the fair a lot of consideration, whether or not we thought we could do this or modify it somehow to do it,” Fonsen Young said, noting that the board looked at some of the other local pageants, which had their queen serve two years instead of the traditional one year. “The pageant is really something where so many people want to come together and see the contestants in person. What we decided to do was ask Neidi (Calvillo) to serve a second year, so she is the Citrus Fair queen for 2021. It works out well, because she hasn’t really had an opportunity this past year to represent the Citrus Fair at anything, because there’s been no events.”
While there won’t be a carnival this year, Fonsen Young said that she’s stayed in contact with Butler Amusements, who’s eager to get back to doing fairs and events. Once things with COVID-19 calm down and hopefully get back to normal, Fonsen Young said that she’s open to the possibility of having Butler Amusements come for a weekend carnival sometime later in the year.
Rather than have a fair theme this year, Fonsen Young said that she hopes the fair will be a “celebration of the community,” where people can come together after a hard year to celebrate the 129-year tradition of the Cloverdale Citrus Fair.
Want to get involved?
Folks who want to submit entries to the fair can do so by visiting the fair website here.
Those wanting to submit videos for the talent showcase or who want to sign their baby up for the Baby Derby need to do so by Feb. 1. Submissions for the still exhibits are due Feb. 1.
For folks that may not be used to entering in things virtually, Fonsen Young said that people can call 707-894-3992 or email the fairgrounds for assistance.
