It may not be the Town & Country Fair as generations of Napans have known it, but the Napa Valley Expo is closing in on the fairgroundâs first summertime festivities since a historic pandemic quashed more than a year of public gatherings around the country.
Board members of the state-owned Expo on Tuesday morning approved a Carnival and Food Fair for late June at the fairground in Napa, as well as a return in early July to an in-person Junior Livestock Auction after the spread of the coronavirus pushed the 2020 auction into an online format.
Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Napa Valley Register. Special offer: $5 for your first 5 months!
Directors of the Napa Valley Expo hope to welcome spectators back to the fairground this summer â but likely with its showcase fair split into separate carnival and livestock events as venues that normally host hundreds or thousands at a time inch their way toward a safer post-pandemic normality.
The state-owned Expo will pursue organizing the facilityâs first Junior Livestock Auction with spectators since 2019, after the outbreak of the coronavirus shut down mass gatherings last year and forced the 2020 auction to move online. This yearâs animal exhibition would take place on the Expoâs Third Street fairground July 7-11 in the time window reserved for the Town & Country Fair, with the auction slated for Saturday, July 10, according to plans former Expo CEO Joe Anderson shared with the board Tuesday morning.