Can anyone imagine social distancing at the Minnesota State Fair?
General Manager Jerry Hammer can't.
"Fundamentally, we're a celebration, we're the big, huge party," he told Dave Lee on the WCCO Morning News. "I don't know how it would work. You could ask people to do these things, then you wind up being social distancing police. It really wouldn't work. The only way they're going to feel completely confident is if there's really no threat. As long as public health is remotely a concern, then it'd be very difficult to do the kind of celebration we do."
Despite the uncertainty with the spread of the coronavirus, an uncertainty that has shut down much of America and prompted the urging of social distancing, the 2020 Great Minnesota Get-Together is still on.
"We're going ahead with planning," said Hammer. "We're hoping for the best because we have to. As long as there's a chance we're going to keep on working and keep on preparing.
"I don't think there's a fair in the world that would make a call until they absolutely have to, and we're not there yet," he said
The 2020 Minnesota State Fair is scheduled to run Aug. 27 until Labor Day, Sept. 7 at the historic fairgrounds in Falcon Heights.
The state fair has attracted more than 2,000,000 people in both 2018 and 2019.
Last year's fair had six single-day attendance records.
The last time the Minnesota State Fair was canceled was 1946 because of fears from a polio epidemic.
It was the second straight year the fair was called off.
There was no fair in 1945 because of World War II restrictions.
The state fair returned in 1947 with a bang... it was the first year Pronto Pups were served.
The first two cancellations of the Minnesota State Fair were in 1861 because of the Civil War, and 1862 because of the Dakota Conflict.