While driving on the main road past Wilkes Lake in Farmville, people from all over couldn’t help but recognize the giant Ferris wheel and a sky-high twisting and turning ride called Rainbow. As they looked to their lefts in awe, they soon recognized that they were looking at the annual Five County Fair that comes to the Farmville Fair Grounds every year in September.
Mother, Kristan Casto, from Farmville, brought her daughter and granddaughter. “This is my first time here. We just drove by and saw it from the road. I brought my daughter and my granddaughter who is on that ride right now,” she said.
The Five County Fair took place from Sept. 16-20. It included rides, food and game booths for people of all ages to ride, after paying for a general admission ticket. General admission to the fair was $7.00 for adults and $3.00 for children ages 6-11, and children under five got in for free.
The fair also included free parking. On Thursday, Sept. 18, all college students had the opportunity to enjoy the fair with free gate admission with their student I.D. Once inside, attendees had the option of buying a wristband that cost $22.00 each day.
All over the fair-grounds, the rides filled the space. Rides included: flying swings, a spinning apple ride, a carousel, a spinning ride called Round Up and many more other rides for people of all ages to enjoy. But, whether a person likes to ride the rides or not, the fair also offered food and drinks such as lemonade, funnel cakes, pork grinds, candy apples, cotton candy and popcorn.
At the booths, fair attendees could win stuffed animals, blow up toys and even live fish. Ayden, who is nine-years-old, said, “The fair was really fun because you get to win all the prizes and go on rides and stuff. I won a blowup sword, princess blowup, a lizard stuffed animal.”
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, the gates opened at 3 p.m., and on Thursday and Friday the gates opened at 5 p.m. and closed at 10 p.m. each night.
The Five County Fair also featured a special presentation of wrestling to close out the five-day event. On Saturday night, the Brusier Wrestling Federation, a wrestling federation from the local counties, performed pro-wrestling, and featured the former world champ, Ronnie Garvin, as well as other male and female wrestlers.
19-year-old Thomas Robinson, from Pamplin, Virginia, said, “I’m actually part of the wrestling group. I am training so I came up here for that. The wrestling event comes here every year, and I’ve enjoyed it [the fair] every year. It’s usually the same, but it’s something that I enjoy coming to. My favorite part is the wrestling part because it is so entertaining for one. [And also,] it just gets all of the crowd [and] the fans into it.”
Although the fair was fun for some, many fair attendees commented on the lack of advertising, and did not even know the fair was taking place until they saw it from the road. Also, Farmville residents that are regular year attendees of the annual event said that they were disappointed in this year’s lack of rides.
Another fair attendee, who did not want to disclose his name said, “I came with my family and the food was okay. The fair was a little small, but it is just OK for an event out with the family. I was expecting a lot more rides, more people. We live around here and it’s different now. In the past, it has been a lot more rides, the food was better.” Ayden went on to say, “My favorite thing about the fair was the thing that goes up and then goes in circles – the Rainbow [ride].”
