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This Week Is the 70th Annual Manchester Community Fair

The 70th Annual Manchester Community Fair, “The biggest little fair in Michigan”,  will be held June 17-21, 2014. Gate Admission will be $5.00 All Day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday and Thursday and Friday until 4pm. After 4pm on Thursday and Friday, Gate Admission will be $8.00. Children 8 years and under get free admission all week. Adult Season Passes cost $20.00, while Senior Season Passes are $16.00. Each day, a Ride Pass costs $16.00.

This year, the fair will offer a five-day “MEGA PASS” for $50 which will include a wristband each day of the fair and permit all-day unlimited rides (which is $30 less than the cost of buying 5 days worth of wristbands).  Mega passes will be available for purchase at Manchester Market and United Bank & Trust around June 1st and at the fair office starting June 14.

As a special feature of the fair for the whole week, There Will Be White Tigers!

Our fair was incorporated in the summer of 1944. There hadn’t been a fair for the whole war, and with hostilities receding, Manchester felt it could finally allow itself some summer fun. There had been fairs and carnivals in the years before the war, but this fair would be the first officially incorporated in the village, and it is the fair that we hold every year. Now, 70 years on, it’s much the same as the founders planned: we’ve got rides and animals and food and fun.

Check out the for the full calendar of events, but here are just a few of the highlights for the week:

TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2014

The fair, as always, kicks off with the parade. The kids call it the “candy” parade because as all the fire trucks and police cars and marching bands and local business floats, and everything else, march through town, the participants toss out candy to the kids. The parade will run along Main Street starting at 6:30 p.m. The theme for the parade this year is “Manchester, Where Summer Begins” and honored as Parade Marshals will be Evelyn & Webb D. Seegert. The Seegerts have labored for the fair, and for our community, for years. The parade ends with the Crowning of the Fair Queen. ()

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2014

The first full day at the fair will have, among other things, a lot of farm iron pulling a lot of weight. The classic tractor pull starts at 10:30 a.m. At 4:00 p.m. The Antique Tractors will do their pulling.

After that, kids and adults will test their own mettle in the Pedal Pull (registration at 5pm, the pull itself starts at 6pm). And to finish off the evening, the Sarah Swanson Band plays at 8:00 p.m. (While a lovely singer, it is worth noting that she is not related to either me or my wife.)

THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 2014

Thursday is Senior Citizen Day: 62 & over free until 5:00 p.m. The Senior Citizens Program will run at 1:30 p.m. At 7pm we will have a clogging show put on by A Different Beat (Cloggers). And then at 7:30pm, the first of TWO nights of the RODEO! The evening will wind down with local favorite and country music pro T.J. Thomas at 9pm.

FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 2014

More cloggers, the Kreyola Cloggers will entertain us at 5:30 & 8:00 p.m on Friday night. And in between, starting at 7:30pm, our second night of the RODEO. The evening will be rounded out at 9pm with the band Split Decision.

SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 2014

Saturday is Ladies Day, with special activities running from 10:00 a.m.-12 Noon. And as all Ladies will appreciate, the Large Tractor Pull will run throughout the day, from 10:30 a.m. thru evening.

As noted elsewhere in this fine paper, the kids will have the chance to Touch an Emergency Vehicle (w/ demonstrations) () from 2-5:00 p.m. Then MORE CLOGGERS,  Pure Energy Cloggers will perform from 2 & 5:00 p.m. All of the little ladies of Manchester will have a chance to enjoy a Tea Party w/ Cinderella at 2:30 p.m. There will also be a Cinderella Stage Show at 4:00 p.m, followed by Colors the Clown from 4:30-6:30 p.m, the Flying Aces (a frisbee exhibition team) at 5:30 p.m, a Taylor Swift impersonator at 6:00 p.m. and large tractors pulling and pulling all the while. At 7:30pm, the evening will conclude with the bluegrass sweetness of the Saline Fiddlers.

Stay connected with the And find the full schedule and all the information at  Curious about why the fair is so much earlier?

And just to whet your appetite even further, Rebecca Harvey of the Fair Committee has generously shared several photos from recent fairs to remind you off all the fun planned.

2014 Grand Marshalls of the Manchester Community Fair. Webb D. and Evelyn Seegert. Photo provided by Rebecca Harvey

by Fritz Swanson

Fritz Swanson has written for The Believer, the Christian Science Monitor, Print Magazine, McSweeney's, Esopus, LSA Magazine, and The Mid-American Review. He serves as a trustee on the Manchester District Library Board. He's the designer and publisher of ������Ƶ.