Featured Stories: Barnstable County Fair

The Barnstable County Fair is fun, family friendly and not just for locals.

It’s considered a local event, but it attracts thousands of summer visitors. It’s safe, but at times a little scary (in a good sort of way). It’s family friendly, but a perfect place for teens to hang out. It employs only three full-time staff members, but relies on hundreds of committed volunteers. It’s comforting and familiar, but each year it’s a little bit different. 

Welcome to the Barnstable County Fair, one of the oldest in the country, which will attract upwards of 100,000 people during its nine-day run beginning July 18. 

The fair operates on an 86-acre site along Route 151 on the East Falmouth-Mashpee town line. Like other county fairs, it has carnival rides, games of chance, corn dogs and fried dough, clowns, concerts and demolition derbies.

But this county fair also remains true to its roots. 

“We’re very hands-on,” John Sidebottom says as he watches dozens of excited, wide-eyed children line up to hold just-hatched baby chicks. “In a lot of ways, this is the heart of the fair. Many of these kids have never seen a barnyard animal. They’ve certainly never touched one. They’ve never been on a farm. They’ve never watched a cow being milked or a sheep being sheared. But you can see all that here. You can get up close and smell the smells. You can touch. You can feel. That’s what’s special.”  

As superintendent of livestock, Sidebottom is responsible for all things animal. And make no mistake–livestock is big at this fair. From beef to sheep, cows to pigs, the fair’s livestock areas take up the most space. And from Sidebottom’s point of view, the animal exhibits draw the most curious.

Sidebottom says part of his job is educating an increasingly citified and suburbanized public. “I look for ways to teach people about livestock,” Sidebottom says. “It’s a challenge to try and show folks why this is important–what it means to them on a day-to-day basis. Each year I look for ways to make our shows bigger and to bring in animals that you normally don’t see in your everyday life.” 

Sidebottom is passionate about making the livestock exhibits as accessible as possible. If he sees a parent struggling with a stroller or a child in a wheelchair, he’ll swoop down and take that child in his arms for an up-close and personal trip to the pig pens or horse barns. “We try to make it so everyone has a great experience,” Sidebottom says. “It makes you feel good to see parents bringing their kids back year after year.

 

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