Since 1969, the Southeast Alaska State Fair has been a staple of Haines’s summers. It is widely considered the biggest party of the year for the Chilkat Valley. Thousands of people come each year to enjoy the music, the fair food, and the fun. The past few weeks at the fairgrounds have been busy preparing for the festivities to begin. Amanda Randles, The Executive Director of the Fair reflects on the final tasks before opening on Thursday.
Randles: “There’s always last minute things, there’s lots of scrambling, getting all the vendor booths all assigned and figured out. People dropping out, last minute people wanting to join, that’s really normal. People should know we have a very small skeleton staff and almost everyone who works at this fair is a volunteer. We put more than 200 people to work within these 4 days.”
With more than 200 Volunteers working day and night to keep the fair running, there is still a dire need for more volunteers
Randles: “A lot of people treat it like a job, they volunteer so many times a day, and we love them because the reality is if we don’t have the volunteers we can’t have this fair. I’m also still very last minute trying to find housing for our various visitors, most of them entertainers. “
Despite all these setbacks, Randles manages to find her silver lining.
Randles: “That’s always a good time trying to figure that out. The town books up people coming to the fair. Yay! Great! That’s what we want! Yay! Look at all these people coming to the fair! But then we also need our entertainment to not be camping. (Chuckles)”
The bands appearing at the fair this year are a mixture of local talent, and groups from out of town, and even out of country.
Randles: “There’s lots new, our main headliners this year are “Delhi 2 Dublin” who were here in 2018, I think, and were a huge hit. There’s a wonderful band coming from Vancouver. Also a revisit from “The Whiskeydicks”, who are also from Vancouver, it just worked out that way. On Saturday night we have the “Kitchen Dwellers” who are a bluegrass and ole-timey sound band that’s really popular and then they are followed by “The Femmes”. We’re also gonna put the Skagway band Dunch on the main stage, Saturday night, after The Femmes, because we’ve been wanting to put them on the main stage for years.”
With bands coming from near and far to headline, the entertainment doesn’t end there.
Randles: And then a lot of the usual stuff Beach Wrestling is back after a few years hiatus. We sort of took a break from it during the COVID years, for obvious reasons. Juneau Chambers is gonna be here raffling off a pickup truck. Wolleys is gonna be back, I know everyone missed Woolleys last year.”
With events from wrestling to raffling, there’s plenty to do at the fair.
Randles: “The talent show on Thursday, Wearable Arts on Friday, and sort of, the highlights, and I think people are gonna have a wonderful time. But it’s sort of a “Classic Fair”, how about that?”
To learn more about the fair and its festivities you can go online to seakfair.org.
Randles: “Can’t Wait To See Everyone There!”
Without a doubt, this is gonna be another fair for the books.
