Times Observer file photo The Warren County Fair midway was silenced in 2020, but the Fair Board is moving forward with plans for a full Fair in 2021.

For now, the Warren County Fair is on the calendar.

The 2020 fair was canceled in May, but the Fair Board is moving forward with planning for the 2021 Fair.

“We’re planning, cautiously optimistically, to go ahead with the full Fair,” President Dave Wilcox said. “We’ve been getting contracts for entertainment and track events. Vendor contracts are going out and coming back.”

“It’s our opinion that it’s easier to plan it and have all the pieces in place rather than wait until the last minute and be allowed and not be able to pull all the bits and pieces together,” Wilcox said.

They don’t expect a middle-of-the-road Fair.

“Our thinking is that it’s either going to go extremely one way or extremely the other,” he said. “In a normal year, we can predict some of that stuff. This year, you don’t know if some people are going be scared about going out in the crowd, or they’ve been cooped up so long they don’t care.”

“We have no way of predicting,” he said.

If there is a Fair, it will be held Aug. 10 through 14.

The date is set by a consistent formula like “most all the fairs in Pennsylvania,” Wilcox said. “Our Fair is always four weeks before Labor Day.”

Those who do come out to the Fair, if all goes well, should have a familiar experience. Familiar from past Fairs and familiar from a year of living with a pandemic.

“Other than being adherent to CDC and Department of Health guidelines, nothing will be particularly different,” Wilcox said.