The old ways work best at the Canfield Fair

CANFIELD, Ohio – The Canfield Fair is the original social media.

It is a proven way to quickly reach a large audience that represents a cross-section of the community.

The 178^and iteration of the fair opened Wednesday and runs through Monday. As always, it’s a marketplace of ideas, services, new products — and corndogs.

On average, 350,000 people visit the fair each year. So all you need is a stand and a sign to advertise a company, a politician or something else that deserves recognition.

Sooner or later everyone will see your “message”. With a bit of luck it can go viral.

That’s what Cassandra Vega hopes for.

From her stand, she’s spreading the word—and hoping to raise money—for a film she’ll be shooting in Youngstown next year.

This West Side native graduated from Ursuline High School in 2018 and from New York University in 2022, where she studied film and television studies.

Her film, “Tune Up,” is inspired by her father. It will be the first feature film she has made and directed.

The title is a reference to the term “Youngstown tuneup” – local slang for the Mafia car bombings in the region in the 1970s – but it encompasses much more.

“It has mafia ties, but I don’t want it to be a mafia movie,” Vega said. “That’s not my thing. It’s a movie about identity.”

The main character is based on the circumstances of her father’s life, who grew up in the Youngstown neighborhood. Her father’s father, Nicholas Alexander Jr., was killed in 1975 by a mob car bomb. That changed the course of her father’s life.

“My grandmother remarried and my father was adopted by her new husband,” Vega said. “They changed his name and his identity. His biological family was still there and he was offered to join the family business, but he turned it down. This film follows a series of events that could have happened if he had said yes. It’s about his identity and how he finds out what his father was involved in.”

There is no cast for the film yet.

Vega has started a crowdfunding campaign to raise the $20,000 needed for pre-production.

“We want to film it here next year,” she said. “We also need extras and volunteers. We want it to be a community effort.”

She is aiming for a total production budget of $495,000. For information, please contact producer Alexandria Hellman at (email address).

Filming will take place at various businesses and locations in downtown Youngstown and the West Side.

Political season

The Canfield Fair is known for attracting political candidates for top office. Both the Democratic and Republican parties of Mahoning County have tents where they register voters and local candidates come by to greet the crowd.

Given that this is a presidential year, and a year full of conflict, are the friendly banter running high?

So far, the answer is no, although one passerby stopped by the Democratic tent to express his disagreement with a number of agricultural and environmental policies.

A longtime Democratic Party volunteer who wished to remain anonymous listened to him.

“I am 74 years old and I have been volunteering here for a long time,” the volunteer said. “I have seen everything, but this has never happened to me before.”

At the Republican tent Wednesday morning, a volunteer handing out food to fans said she had not had any visitors who were grumpy. “Everyone has been very friendly,” she said.

AG Hall of Fame

The Mahoning County Agricultural Hall of Fame inducted the 2024 class of inductees Wednesday morning on the small stage outside the grandstand. It’s the third year for the Hall of Fame, and the inductees were Roger Greenawalt, Francis and Jane Less, Paul E. Myers and Harvey S. Firestone.

At its core, the Canfield Fair is about agriculture. To enhance the recognition of the Hall of Fame inductees, a number of fabric banners have been hung around the grounds.

“This is the first year we’ve put the banners up,” said Elwood Woolman, a fair board member. “When we introduce new people every year, everyone gets a banner. So 300,000 people will know about it, not just a few.”

The four-foot-tall banners, featuring each entrant’s name and photo, are mounted on poles along Springfield Drive at the fairgrounds.

Scary spots

It’s scorching hot right now. But Halloween is just around the corner, and that means the Canfield Fairgrounds is becoming the Canfield Scaregrounds haunted attraction.

The Scaregrounds have set up a big tent at the fair in recent years with a haunted maze and a merchandise shop. Look out for the giant skeletons.

The aim is to increase interest in the attraction and perhaps also attract some young people to work there and thus deter visitors.

It works, just like social media.

Chuck Burns and Scaregrounds director Ken Beckett manned the tent on Wednesday.

“Last year, a girl went through the maze 10 times and stayed there all night,” Burns said. “She ended up at Scaregrounds.”

Spinning wool

Outside the fairgrounds, on the edges of the fairgrounds, there are stables for the animals, antique tractors and engines used in agriculture and sawmills, and other aspects of rural life from earlier times.

At one of those structures, Janice Graham of Farrell, Pa., demonstrates the art of spinning wool into yarn. She has been a regular at the fair for 12 years.

Using a pedal-powered wooden spindle, she demonstrates how fine Australian merino wool is slowly transformed into soft and warm thread, which is then woven or crocheted into garments.

Graham sees it as a craft that should be maintained, if only to remind us of how people lived in centuries gone by.

“They bartered their services,” she said, explaining that there were no stores, so neighbors traded woolen clothing for other goods or services.

Graham will be giving a spinning demonstration on September 17 at 2:00 p.m. at the Community Library of the Shenango Valley in Sharon, Pennsylvania.

The Great Pumpkin

Giant pumpkins and misshapen gourds have become a hallmark of the Canfield Fair, and the building that houses the annual exhibit is always busy.

This year the exhibition will take place at a new location: in a building directly behind the site where the old pumpkin building once stood.

The previous building was demolished and now there is only empty land. There is no word on why it was demolished or if a new building will be built on the site.

By the way, the winner of this year’s giant pumpkin contest is Kali McMillin of Salem, who grew one that weighed in at a whopping 1,900 pounds.

Improvements

The Canfield Fair is all about tradition. Keeping things the same keeps people coming back year after year.

However, some improvements have been made to enhance the experience for visitors.

Infrastructure has been added to improve wireless reception on the property. Anyone with a mobile phone will notice the difference.

Also new this year are a number of kiosks in the center of the ride area, where guests can more quickly purchase wristbands or ride credits.

Top of photo: The exterior of the Canfield Scaregrounds booth beckons brave visitors.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.