ST. LOUIS — Many Fourth of July celebrations were canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Fair Saint Louis chose to keep the annual celebration alive in a way like never before.
On average, more than 300,000 people visit Fair Saint Louis over the Fourth of July holiday weekend each year.
But this year, that wasn’t possible. Instead of canceling the event entirely, Fair Saint Louis went virtual.
Fair Saint Louis general chairman David Estes said
“It was a labor of love finally coming together,” Estes said. “We worked six, seven weeks nonstop with production, with talent, with operations.”
Estes said Fair Saint Louis tracked analytics for those who tuned in, and documented tens of thousands of visitors.
The show lasted roughly an hour and a half on Facebook Live.
Estes said every aspect of the event was planned with a purpose.
“Because our region has been struggling with the pandemic, we wanted to make it about St. Louis,” Estes said. “And so that’s why you saw a St. Louis sponsor, St. Louis artists, St. Louis celebrities.”
Another large part of the virtual celebration highlighted Fair Saint Louis Gives Back, which was an initiative to support essential workers in the community.
“We wanted to just do something for them to say, ‘Thank you,’” Estes said. “And so we had a day of meals that we started at the end of May, and for the next four weekends we actually took them meals. People need masks, and so we gave them much needed masks.”
Estes said the meeting date has already been set to begin planning Fair Saint Louis 2021 in the next few weeks.
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