Canfield Fair kicks off 2017 season with announcements, updates

CANFIELD — The Canfield Fair Board said today that it had raised $2 million so far for its capital campaign to build a new junior fair coliseum in time for the 2018 fair.

To build the show arena/event center and ancillary buildings and barns, the Canfield Fair Foundation launched its first capital campaign to raise $4.5 million for the project.

A half-million dollars of that will be set aside for infrastructure improvements.

Also today, the fair board made several announcements on what's new at the 171st Canfield Fair that runs this year Aug. 30 through Sept. 4.

One of the new events is Ag-Venture. There are 11 stops throughout the fairgrounds for people of all ages to stop and obtain stamps. If participants collect all 11 stamps, they receive a prize from Deerfield Ag Services.

Akron Children's Day is on Thursday, Aug. 31, the day children get in free. There will be activities for children including a life-sized version of the game "Operation."

Wednesday through Friday there will be senior health stations at two stops located at each end of the fairground.

The Junior Fair horse races will come back this year on Friday, Saturday and Monday to help raise money for the capital campaign.

There will be three races a day at the grandstand.