The Antelope Valley Times

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AV Fair cancelled due to logistics of COVID-19 safety protocols

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LANCASTER – The 2021 Antelope Valley Fair & Alfalfa Festival, which was scheduled to begin on Oct. 1, was cancelled, organizers announced Friday, saying that new mandates from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health caused too many logistical problems.

The Los Angeles Department of Public Health announced this week that effective Oct. 7, outdoor events with more than 10,000 people must require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours.

The fair typically takes place over 10 days in August but was moved to eight days in October to accommodate COVID-19 health and safety protocols and mandates. The event also was also scaled back to have a reduced number of vendors, exhibitors and concessionaires, and the arena concert series was already cancelled.

“While our staff and volunteers have made countless changes and efforts to hold this event safely, the continued obstacles Los Angeles County Health Department imposes on safe, outdoor events like ours forces us to make this very difficult decision,” said Antelope Valley Fair & Event Board President Drew Mercy.

“Despite our community’s incredible efforts in coming together on every front, with support of this year’s AV Fair and the numerous changes made, doing their part to keep infection rates down in the Antelope Valley, and working together to safely gather at events — this is today’s outcome. These new mandates prohibit us from providing our fair attendees the experiences they have come to expect, enjoy and deserve. We’re working closely with our vendors, concessionaires and others to help minimize the impact this decision has to their business,” Mercy said.

People who have already purchased tickets will receive automatic refunds.

“The health and well-being of our community has and always will be our top priority. We’ve been carefully preparing this year’s event with stringent safety protocols at the forefront of all of our planning. However, these recent Los Angeles County mandates are the tipping point in terms of resources, forecasting reduced attendance and other burdens that impact our ability to move forward,” said Antelope Valley Fair & Event Center CEO Dan Jacobs.

“Saying we’re disappointed is an understatement. We sincerely appreciate how our fair fans, sponsors, concessionaires, vendors, exhibitors and volunteers have supported us through these last two very tumultuous years,” Jacobs added.

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Filed Under: Home, Lancaster

62 comments for "AV Fair cancelled due to logistics of COVID-19 safety protocols"

  1. So Drew Mercy weasled his way into the publicly-funded AV Fair Board too?

    Gotta keep up on that CalPERS account there, right Drew? No private sector work for Drew! No private sector expectations, either!

    Republicans in this town are such hypocrites! …Nothing says “pull yourselves up by the bootstraps” than to be appointed by the Good Ol’ Boys to numerous taxpayer funded boards and agencies.

    • Drew is a good ol boy Republican and works to keep them in power. Drew hops around to whomever the next Republican legislator is. The local good ol boys make his hiring a condition of continued support and of course their continued financial support at election time. Of course Drew gets to make another dip in the financial pot as a campaign consultant

  2. … stroke of genius by the Biden administration, exploiting illegal immigration to perpetuate and elongate the pandemic –

  3. Republicanism : The politics of death. Trump’s base is dying at a rate of close to 2000 a day including the hundreds that don’t realize that God brought this plague upon us in order to rid the world of Trump. Yet the Trumpers keep avoiding the vaccine – and they continue to die. How is this a problem?

    • The Republicans believe in the “resurrection”…Trump’s.

      Meanwhile, they’re dying lies flies in Florida….nearer to their “god” they’ll be.

    • I think that the real problem is that “you people” want to see the world get stabbed with a needle just to make yourselves feel more human. Who are you to dictate what humans should do with their body. God only knows what you people do with yours that requires more than just a stab of a covid needle.

    • Most of us Boomers were doing the EXACT same thing the Millenials are doing now – 40 years ago. Sure we didn’t have cell phones, but we managed to socialize on a more real level than most millennials will ever know. Good luck with your self-stimulation on Tik-Tok.
      The difference between millennials and boomers is small compared to the distance between boomers and the “Greatest Generation”. I believe that boomers are more tolerant (except for deranged Trumpers).

  6. I have never been to the A.V. Fair on Ave. H. Last time I went was when it was on Ave. I, and we sure did have fun.

  7. Amazing…We have it all here in the Antelope Valley. The A.V. Fair has been cancelled and there are black security guards, cabals, illegals, no funnel cakes, corrupt politicians everywhere, and oh boy, the mystery deepens.

  8. They should make it a science experiment. Have a vaxxed fair on one side unvaxxed on the other. Follow up with results.

  9. “doing their part to keep infection rates down in the Antelope Valley”

    Drew “mouth full of lies” Mercy

    The AV has had among the highest infection rates and lowest vaccination rates in the county throughout the pandemic. Drew and his partners on crime can point fingers all they want, but they have done a {urine} poor job managing the crisis from soup to nuts and now have the audacity to be upset when someone else manages it for them. Standard Lancaster cabal.

      • I think we are finally on the right track. Workplace enforcement is the easiest path.

        But as far as Drew and Wrecks and the rest of the rotten gang goes, the only thing they really had enough authority to get out and do would have been to strongly and publicly endorse the governor’s “get vaccinated” messages while putting the liar/wrong stamp hard on people spewing nonsense like Trump and Zink and such. It shouldn’t be Tim the comments section rando that is constantly having to correct the nonsense here…there should have been official statements coming out of the mayor’s office on a weekly basis.

    • It is so sad that Drew, Marv, and all the Fern St. Mafia types won’t be able to sit around their V.I.P quarters sucking down booze and eating food all provided by the Fair. I may just break down and cry.

      • Why do you think the big shot VIP have motor homes parked in the back. A lot of games going on by these freeloader big shots, ask Marvin he is in charge of that.

    • The AV fair leadership are trump driven and want to ignore the regulations and science to keep us all safe. Better that they cancel.

    • This Trump led fairboard is hell bent on promoting their friends events like the rodeo and rural olympics at the demise of the people attending that will not mask up or get vaccinated. No thanks and they don’t realize even the animals in the stands and in the events are now contacting the virus. Idiots all

        • I have. Fairgrounds are fairgrounds, for the most part. It’s the fair you put on them that can be good or bad.

          I think the quality of fairs everywhere has declined so much that I just don’t care. Back in the day when every charitable organization got a really cheap space and organized their volunteers the food was cheap and great and there were funds raised for good causes. Now the fair board has to make money so they charge a ton for a space and the only people who will pay the freight are basically food trucks and caterers who look at it as “captive market stuck at the fair, we can all charge outrageous prices for the same stuff you can get off a food truck on the street for half.”

    • Those that think that it’s a trash event are obviously irrelevant to it all and should stay that way.

  11. What it sounds like to me is that they’re going to have to spend a good amount on bio security protocols and after all that no profit to turn. It comes down to money not mandates. Obviously California is getting by just fine and the numbers dropping prove it. Don’t blame the mandates blame the money.

  12. If 10,000 locals (regardless of political views for god sakes) quit giving a damn about the politics of airbourne viruses and just went to the fair and chose to have fun and let go, will the Governor hire 20,000 big black security gaurds to man-handle people out of the facility so that he may have a nice restaurant experience after? Would he be bold to mandate it all if he didn’t have paid pappa bears to wipe after him. Would the local energy companies that power this town at our expense have the heart to power it all down and stop the fun? Are big gorilla politics gonna dictate where and how people should breath and socialize? To Those that love this nonessential job of enforcing communities to wear masks and get shots and keep far distance (when they were too chicken to deal with their personal problems among themselves and the prior communities that they left behind to “discover” and drain another one for a government paycheck), such ways are gonna set these minorities back another 100 years into a mental slavery and segregation that Newsom/Obama voters created for themselves and there isn’t gonna be NO Martin Luther King to plead for an equality on their behalf because the nonsense is being revealed as we live in a digital era where nonsense is being accounted for by Americans of all races that choose not to go backwards anymore. Put the crackpipe down, change that sweaty soiled security gaurd oufit to a janitor outfit and grab a broom and clean your community while getting re-educated to get a better job that benefits American Industries let alone themselves.

    • Wow. Alby finally drops the mask and goes straight up white power racist. I guess the honesty is a small flower of refreshing in the overall disgusting dung heap of bigotry…

      • Haaaa!!! Who enforced me to putting my mask on? Who kicked me out when I didn’t? Who then made me take my mask off “enforcefully” when SARS was blown over and the majority got vaccinated and was all of the sudden worried about masked vandals? Who was the one that was the most pushy about it literally? Who rejected vaccinations when the prior President said to do it? Who rejected jobs when the jobs came back from overseas? Who all of the sudden loved it when Biden said to do it? Who is the most racist and who was more blindly pushy about nu-polotics? The very people that are blind about a past are now having a reason to stick their teeth down our throats as we’re trying to make a Jimmy Carter/JFK democracy that every hard working American deserves now. But the crackpipe and security attire stays on awaiting freebee politics that ultimately benefit noone in the future other than their need? I honestly am waiting for the dent Newsom said He’s gonna make on homelessness down the road, otherwise, (like this othe guy said) taxpayers are gonna leave this [removed] State behind and its gonna be worse for the others trying to hold that economy upright. And then all of the sudden Hollywood came by, walked by it all and said…

        • Q: “Who rejected vaccinations when the prior President said to do it?” – Alby

          A: Uhhh, nobody?

          Numerous people said that federal agencies under the Trump administration couldn’t be trusted with vaccine testing because they were susceptible to bribes from the pharmaceutical industry. Given the levels of corruption in the Trump administration that was a very valid concern. Because of that concern numerous state health agencies from large states that could afford to fund their own testing had to pursue independent testing as a backstop.

          I would have had to seriously consider the risks using a vaccine certified only by the Trump administration, but I didn’t have to because the vaccines were not just certified by the Trump administration.

          Anyway, still kinda glad you came out in the open with your glaring racism. Better to know what we are dealing with.

          • Lol “glaring racism.” I dont recall ever manhandling a person of color in order to make them obedient to public demands such as wearing masks and social distancing. Ever since Obama, people of color feel the strong need to be unelementally “white and right” based on the illusions of inferiority they’ve subjected themselves to instead of taking time to see the forest for the trees. They feel the need for politcal vengeance and will get physical if they aren’t being respected the way that they want to be. I know because they have with me a few times over the stupidest ghetto reasons. Democracy in this current administration has been all about bribing the ghetto with welfare in exchange for democratic votes. I guess democracy needed to win the bribes of vaccine companies as well. Anything that they can get for nothing right?

    • Alby go find a job. Noone cares about you pages long comment its a bunch of crap you have no clue what your typing you just want attention

      • You have no clue because you are ignorant in general and obviously you gave it attention. Please change your ugly name. Did that get your attention as well?

    • They were using to to house Illegals…I guess that is more money then the fair! Yes I will miss the funnel cakes LOL

      • Look we didn’t have the fair last year has nothing to do and they Alum Valley okay so no I don’t know whoever you are why did get off your f****** ass do your damn f****** job and open up the fair there’s nothing to do in the f****** la LA County I hope I make myself clear. This town is very f****** boring as it is you have nothing for the a middle class and for the elderly you always have stuff for the children and the young adults this town is very f***** up not only that mister governor you need to work on your people skills you need to talk to Palmdale Governor cuz we are only 30 miles away from each other okay why did one city has to be different from another city answer that question open up the fair everybody wants to the failed to be open open that I have your lazy ass I went over myself there’s nothing to do out here you dumb bum and here you making money off of us and not only that let me tell you something about my street can you get the website of j8 fixed up I keep falling that when I’m walking to the bus so therefore get off your ass and do something about it!. Everybody wants a fair opening show do I you idiot forget Newson he’s a f****** a****** I thought you already know about that you idiot.! This is Morgan Morales and Bobby Jones Drive Unit 8 in the condos right next to AV College