The new president said key to the Big E's endurance is spicing yearly favorites with new offerings.
Michael Bradshaw changes the light bulbs and color covers on the Mini Jets ride at the Big E, which opens Friday in West Springfield.Think of it as 17 days of doing and eating stuff your parents and doctors would rather you didn’t, and with a Ferris wheel in the background.
The annual fair of the Eastern States Exposition — the Big E — begins today and runs through Sept. 30 at the fairgrounds on Memorial Avenue in West Springfield.
Midway rides let you play around with gravity and the Big E Cream Puff is a small planet of depravity.
Big E officials said 1,201,428 people attended last year’s fair.
“It’s a place where you can find anything, whether it’s a commercial product or a food product. The shopping is unending. There’s so much here, there’s something that appeals to everyone,” said Eugene J. Cassidy, Big E president and chief executive officer.
Cassidy marks his first Big E as CEO but he has been a Big E employee since 1993, when he became director of finance. He took over in June from G. Wayne McCary, who retired after having led the Big E since 1991.
The key to the Big E lasting nearly a century is adding new attractions while keeping favorites fair-goers have come to expect, Cassidy said.
A new feature in the Young Building will be the Christmas-themed “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” with dozens of trees , a gazebo, bridge and ice skating pond, he said.
For the first time, the Big E will have a “Salute to Holyoke” day on Tuesday. A contingent from the Paper City will march in the 5 p.m. parade in an event planned by Mayor Alex B. Morse, the Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce and City Councilor David K. Bartley.
“We have a lot to be proud of here in Holyoke and I know we all look forward to sharing our pride next Tuesday,” Morse said.
Fair entertainment this year will include country music stars Alan Jackson (Sept. 30) and Billy Currington (Sept. 28) among paid performances.
Free shows include those by the Stars of the Peking Acrobats, the Big E Super Circus and Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers.
The Big E began in 1917 to hype the region’s farming industry. Agricultural activities remain a staple of the fair, from cattle shows and farm animal exhibits to 4H booths and a cheese competition. Much of it is in the Mallary Complex and the Coliseum.
As the description on Wikipedia notes, the Big E is the de facto state fair for all of the New England states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. Each of the six is represented at the fair with a building devoted to the state’s culture and products on the Avenue of States.
Like the old line about the changing New England weather, if you want a parade at the Big E, wait a moment, one will come by. The Mardi Gras Parade marches twice a day Monday through Friday and once each on Saturday and Sunday.
That’s in addition to the Big E Daily Parade that features the Hallamore Clydesdales, other animals and marching bands.
Other attractions: Catherine Hickland, “Comedy Hypnotist”; Randy Burns, the Mechanical Man (“find out if he is a real human”); the Sea Lion Splash; and an annual sculpture at the Mallary Complex made of butter by artist Jim Victor. This year’s butter sculpture is a barefoot boy riding an ox through a field. (Why not?)
Food? There’s baked potatoes, pizza, sausage grinders, lobster rolls, apple pie and cheddar cheese, ice cream, donuts, barbecue, fried dough, gyros, muffins, cookies – vegetables! – coffee, hot and iced, pierogies, corn dogs, ostrich jerky and the Big E Craz-E Burger, available at The Big EZ Café on New England Avenue and composed of a bacon cheeseburger between two halves of a grilled glazed donut.
The Big E runs generally 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Events and browsing occur along broad walkways and inside 39 buildings set on the fairgrounds’ 175 acres.
About 1,000 people work for the Big E and the fair has another 1,000 volunteers.
That’s in addition to 2,250 vendors and concession employees working the grounds.
All of which plays out with music chiming out of the Big E’s custom-made New England Band Organ.