| State Fair of Virginia | |
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Competitive weight pumpkins at the State Fair of Virginia |
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| Date(s) | Late September - Early October |
| Frequency | Annually |
| Location(s) | Meadow Event Park, Caroline County, Virginia United States |
| Inaugurated | 1854 |
| Genre | State Fair |
| Website | statefair.com |
The State Fair of Virginia is held annually at the end of September, currently at the Meadow Event Park in Caroline County, Virginia. Through 2008, the fair was held at the Richmond Raceway Complex, located in eastern Henrico County, just outside of the capital city of Richmond.
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The Fair offers rides, carnival games, concerts, and typical Fair foods such as corn dogs, cotton candy, and funnel cakes as well as Virginia favorites such as barbecue, chicken and peanuts. The Fair also offers technological, agricultural, historical, and livestock exhibitions and competitions, including pig races. Several of the competitions offer scholarships to students that compete.
The expositions include: Virginia World which highlights Virginia agricultural products, the better living center which hosts the arts & craft competition displays, the technology expo which highlights Virginia technology industry, and Young McDonald's Farm which displays a variety of young animals for the urban visitor to see. Additionally, one section of the Fair includes a "Heritage Village" which displays Native American, African American, and Euro-American history in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Various activities
The Fair moved to its new location in 2009 at the Meadow Event Park in Caroline County. This multi-use space of 360 acres (1.5 km2) includes a 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m2) exposition hall, a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) multi-purpose pavilion, a horse-stall barn with 143 stalls, and an equine facility with four show rings, to accommodate local and regional horse shows and other equine events. The Meadow Event Park is on the site of Meadow Farm, the thoroughbred horse farm owned by Christopher Chenery that was the breeding home of back-to-back racing greats Riva Ridge and Secretariat, the winners of five of the six Triple Crown races in 1972 and 1973.