Maui County making plans to bring back the fair after years of cancellations

Maui County is looking to revive the Maui Fair, a beloved local tradition that hasn’t been held since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and rising shipping costs. 

On Friday, the Mayor’s Office asked the Maui County Council to allocate $1.5 million in the fiscal year 2025 budget to the nonprofit Festivals of Aloha for the 2025 Maui County Fair.

In a letter, Budget Director Lesley Milner asked the council to discuss the funding “as soon as possible” because planning and operation expenses would be needed shortly.

Daryl Fujiwara, executive director of the Festivals of Aloha, wasn’t ready to share details yet. But he said Tuesday: “I think it’s definitely possible with the county’s support. And if the funding does become available, I’m sure a wonderful version of the county fair can happen.”

Many Maui County residents have fond memories of the fair, some dating back more than a half century when extravagant horse races would pack the Grand Stand at the Old Kahului Fairgrounds.

Growing up, Fujiwara remembers waiting for his mom to finish her shift volunteering at the fair for the Kamehameha Alumni Association so they could grab food and enjoy the music and entertainment. 

Fujiwara said while the revamped fair “definitely won’t be the same” as in the past, “it will be somewhere very close to it.”

The bill is on the council’s agenda this Friday. Council Chairperson Alice Lee said Tuesday she’s received letters from about eight students asking the council to approve the funding. 

“We haven’t really looked at the details, but it sounds like it’s very promising, and if there’s a lot of community support, I’m sure that we will find the funding to make it happen,” said Lee, whose residency district includes Wailuku where the fair was held for decades. 

When asked if the county could afford to revive the fair given the ongoing costs of rebuilding in Lahaina and Kula after the August 2023 wildfires, Lee said the federal government’s promise of more than $2 billion in funding will help with the fire recovery and offset the decline in visitors and tax revenues that Maui County has seen since the fires. 

“Our community was hit hard by the Lahaina fires and the fires Upcountry and now around California, so I think we need something to bring that joy into the community, and this might be one of the things we can do,” Lee said of resuming the fair. 

She said the bill to fund the fair would likely get referred to committee for consideration. 

The Maui Fair was first held over Thanksgiving weekend 1916 in Wailuku where Wells Park now stands, according to The Maui News. Three years later it moved to the Kahului Fairgrounds, and since 1989 it’s been held at the War Memorial Complex in Wailuku. The annual fall event features thrilling rides, competitive carnival games, local vendors and agricultural exhibitions, and scores of homemade food and drinks sold by community groups who often relied on the fair as their largest source of fundraising for the year. 

In 2019, the 97th Maui Fair logged a total attendance of about 90,000 people over the course of four days. 

The fair had only been canceled a handful of times during World War I and World War II. But when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the fair was cancelled in 2020 and again in 2021 due to county restrictions and public health concerns. 

Avery Chumbley, a longtime president of the Maui Fair Alliance that organized the event, has said that the hiatus during the pandemic caused a breakdown in relationships with providers, volunteers and key organizations.

Another big contributor to the failure to revive the fair after COVID restrictions were lifted was the escalating costs of shipping the heavy amusement games and rides, and the rising costs to transport and house the people who run them.

In April of last year, the alliance announced it was cancelling the 2024 fair, which would have been the 98th event. The alliance added that it was planning to dissolve as a body. 

Maui County said in an emailed statement on Wednesday that when the alliance announced that it was dissolving, “there wasn’t enough lead time to plan an alternative event last year.” In the fall, the county started discussions with the Festivals of Aloha, which managed the county’s three-day Kunihia Maui remembrance events marking the one-year anniversary of the August 2023 wildfires in Lahaina and Upcountry.

“The Maui Fair is a huge community-building event,” the county said. “We’ve heard from the community, including in the Maui Economic Recovery Commission report and the Lahaina Long-Term Recovery Plan, that people want the opportunity to gather together, see neighbors and feel like a community.

“We hope to be able to have a fair this year that will maintain its nearly 100-year-old traditions as well as encompass residents from rural communities including Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi and Hāna to bring a spirit of unity to our residents countywide.”

The $1.5 million the county is proposing would be used for a variety of fair-related costs, including transportation, entertainment and agricultural exhibitions. The largest costs include shipping rides, games and tents to Maui; traffic control and security by off-duty police officers; and insurance, the county said. There also are anticipated costs of repairing and acquiring fair equipment such as food booths, picnic tables, tents and benches.

No cuts are being made to other areas of the budget to pay for the fair; the additional funding is “from carryover savings that are available due to unexpected funds from a previous fiscal year,” the county said, adding that it does not expect to provide additional funding.

Other possible sources of revenue include sponsorships, donations and ticket admissions.

“While the County is working toward the goal of having the fair return this year, multiple logistical and financial details are still being resolved,” the county said. “Significant effort, strong community support and active involvement are needed to accomplish this.”

Putting on the fair in 2019 cost nearly $740,000, according to Chumbley, who was “surprised” that the county planned to allocate roughly twice that amount toward restarting the fair.

Chumbley first got involved with the fair as an exhibitor in 1985. He went on to manage the horticultural and agricultural exhibits the next two years and took over as fair director in 1988. He suggested putting on a smaller-scale event than the four-day event it once was.

“I’ve offered to provide them advice and consultation, and I hope they’re successful, but I think they have a bigger challenge than what they expect,” Chumbley said.

Michael Victorino, who served as Maui County mayor from 2018 to 2022, said he tried to revive the fair while in office but was held back by COVID. After he left office, he went as far as to contact Mainland companies to see if rides could be brought to the islands. The fair holds a lot of significance for Victorino, who started working as a volunteer at the Old Kahului Fairgrounds in 1981 and served as fair director from 1997 to 2006. He supported the county putting money toward the event and said many nonprofits “have suffered from not having the fair.”

Victorino isn’t seeking to take on his old role, saying it’s time to pass the baton, but he plans to help and advise the efforts however he can. He added that he hoped the county could give the fair organizers a break on fees to use county facilities to help it get off the ground in the first couple of years.

He remembered in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings, there was talk of cancelling the Maui Fair, but organizers got together and decided “that we weren’t going to be stopped by a terrorist attack.”

“For years I’ve seen people come out and get together, friends and family, see old-time relationships bonding again, so I think the fair is a real important aspect of our community,” he said.

Scott Fernandez, president of E.K. Fernandez, a family-owned company that’s been providing the rides and games for Hawai’i fairs and carnivals for more than a century, said that the company misses Maui and is “open to the possibility of coming back for sure.”

“It’s been a long time, but we’re willing to come if that’s what the people of Maui decide, and try and do our best to bring entertainment to the same level,” Fernandez said Tuesday.

He acknowledged that E.K. Fernandez may need funding from the county to help bring over staff and rides, because even with revenues from the fair, the company takes a loss every time it travels to the Neighbor Islands for an event.

“I can’t really confirm what the size would be or how it would look because I’ve got no real information other than that they’re considering it,” Fernandez said. “We’d do our best to bring it back.” 

Fernandez has good memories of the Maui Fair as a kid in the 1970s and ‘80s. He remembers staying at the Maui Palms — which, for a kid, felt like the Grand Wailea — and helping to set up the equipment for the festivities, including a large tent that he recalls once got caught in a huge gust of wind and took him some 15 feet into the air.

Fernandez said he was expected to pull his weight and remembers other employees sharing their grilled cheese sandwiches with him after a long morning of work.

“We’re happy to bring the fun back to Maui, and see if I can make some more memories where I’m not flying in the air, or anything like that,” Fernandez said with a laugh.