Your Fair Survived a Century. Will It Survive the Next Transition?

You've been at this a long time. You know what it takes to keep a fair running—the budgets, the politics, the weather disasters, the last-minute vendor cancellations. You've held it together through all of it. And if you're like most longtime fair board members, you inherited this role from a generation before you who did the same thing. They carried the fair for decades, and when the time came, they handed it to you.

Now that responsibility sits with you. Not just keeping the fair alive for another season, but making sure there's someone ready to take it when you step back. And that's the part that doesn't get talked about enough.

The Generational Handoff No One Is Planning For

Here's the uncomfortable truth: if you don't have a clear pipeline of younger leaders learning the real work of your fair board right now, you're running on borrowed time. Not because you're doing anything wrong today, but because the transition takes longer than most people think. The generation that handed you this role didn't do it overnight. They brought you in, let you learn, gave you room to grow into it. That same process has to start now for the generation coming behind you.

And here's what makes it harder this time: the generation you're trying to hand it to doesn't engage the same way yours did.

A Different Generation Requires a Different Approach

This isn't speculation—it's well-documented. Deloitte's 2024 and 2025 Global Gen Z and Millennial Surveys, which together represent over 44,000 respondents across 44 countries, found that roughly nine in ten Gen Zs and millennials consider a sense of purpose to be important to their satisfaction and well-being in any organization they give their time to. They don't just want to show up and be told what to do. They want to understand why it matters, have a voice in shaping it, and feel like their contribution actually moves the needle.

This is a fundamental shift from how many of us came up. We were handed tasks, we did them well, and we earned our seat over time. That model worked for our generation. But younger generations are won over differently—by being involved and having their input genuinely incorporated from day one. If you want them at the table, they need to feel like the table is actually theirs too.

For fair boards, this has a very practical implication: the old playbook of "put in your time and eventually you'll get a say" will not attract or retain the next generation of fair leaders. You have to involve them earlier and more meaningfully than you were involved.

Why This Matters Beyond the Board

Think about your broader goal. If you want more people from your community coming through the fair gates—as fairgoers, exhibitors, vendors, or performers—then you need to engage all generations. And the people best suited to engage a generation that isn't yours are people from that generation.

A 25-year-old board member knows what will get their friends to show up. They know where to reach them, what platforms they're on, what experiences they're drawn to, and what will make them come back. You can't Google that. You can't assume it. You need those voices in the room, and they need to be empowered to act on what they know.

The Junior Fair Board Trap

A lot of boards have tried to address this by starting a junior fair board. On paper, it sounds right. In practice, it often goes sideways—not because the idea is bad, but because of how it's executed.

The most common mistake is creating a junior board that doesn't actually have a say in anything meaningful. They get a title, maybe a few tasks that nobody else wanted, and they're treated like another item on the to-do list rather than an asset that could help with the already overwhelming work of running a fair. Young people see through that immediately. They know the difference between being involved and being managed.

If your junior board exists mostly so you can say you have one, it's doing more harm than good. It's teaching the next generation that your fair doesn't actually value their contribution—and they won't stick around to be proven wrong.

How to Do It Right

Start by asking questions instead of making assumptions. Before you structure a junior board or youth initiative, go to the younger people in your community and ask: What would this need to look like for you to actually want to join? What would make it worth your time?

Get ready to hear things that might surprise you. They'll tell you they want real involvement, not busywork. They want a genuine say in decisions. They want the opportunity to set their own direction, test new ideas, and learn from the outcome. They're not asking to run the whole fair tomorrow. They're asking for a shot at something that actually matters.

Then follow through. Give them a front-row seat to the actual work of a fair board—not just the tasks no one else wants, but the full picture. Let them sit in on budget conversations, vendor negotiations, and strategic planning. Give them a project they can own from start to finish, with a real budget, even a modest one. Let them see it through and learn from the experience.

When they make mistakes—and they will—treat those as the affordable leadership development tools they are. A stumble on a small project is infinitely better than a leadership vacuum five years from now because no one was ever given the chance to learn.

They Have as Much to Teach as They Do to Learn

This is the part most boards miss. Bringing in younger leaders isn't just about succession planning—it's about making the fair better right now. These aren't empty seats to fill. They're people with fresh perspectives, different networks, and knowledge you don't have.

They know how to reach audiences you're not reaching. They know which local creators and influencers could put your fair in front of thousands of people. They understand what experiences younger families and young adults are actually looking for. Gather their perspective. Ask what they'd change. Ask what they'd add. You might be surprised how much of it makes sense.

The knowledge you carry—the relationships, the institutional memory, the judgment that comes from decades in the room—is genuinely irreplaceable. But if it only lives in your head, it retires when you do. The most valuable thing you can do with that experience is transfer it, while simultaneously being open to what the next generation brings to the table.

The Fair Has a Future. Build It Intentionally.

Your fair has survived this long because people like you refused to let it fail. The next chapter depends on whether you're willing to bring new people into the work—not on your terms, but on terms that actually work for them.

The next generation isn't asking to tear anything down. They want to be part of something worth building. The question is whether you'll make room for them before they stop asking.

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