A fair is not a festival

The distinction, printed in so many words

The rule: This section closes with the distinction the site prints wherever the two words meet. A fair is a judged exhibition: entries made in advance, premiums awarded, a year's work in field, barn and kitchen measured in public, with entertainment gathered around the judging. A festival is a celebration: it honors an occasion, a heritage or a season, and nothing at it is judged for premiums. South Bend keeps both kinds of summer, and its festival calendar, the ethnic celebrations and downtown gatherings the city's year turns on, stands in the culture material of this record, cross-referenced here and not retold in fair terms. This section has carried only fairs: the society exhibitions of 1852 to 1906, the Interstate Fair, and the 4-H fair in all its homes.

Why the rule needs printing here: St. Joseph County's own record is the proof that the distinction is about judging and not about ground or gaiety. The Interstate Fair was a true fair held inside an amusement park, and the 4-H Fair spent twelve years as Playland Park's guest with a race track and permanent rides around its exhibit buildings, and neither stay made the host park a fair or the guest fair a festival. The township fair had a Ferris wheel at Lakeville and a calf lottery at North Liberty and remained a fair, because Brother Leo's calves and the townships' cattle were entered, shown and judged. Where a South Bend gathering has no judging and no premiums, this work calls it a festival, however old and beloved it is, and where it has both, this work calls it a fair, however many rides surround it. The words are kept separate so that each kind of summer keeps its own history.

Sources:

1. The leg's own record, articles above (the Interstate Fair at Springbrook; the Playland tenancy, 1946 to 1958; the Lakeville amusement area and the 1941 lottery calves).
2. St. Joseph County 4-H Fair, About page (the fair's corporate purpose: education in agriculture, conservation and home industry, with emphasis on 4-H, the judging mission stated in the fair's own words).