Performers Priscilla, Twinkle, and Happy drawn an appreciative look at they make their means up Fiesta Lane throughout opening day on the Santa Cruz County Fair final 12 months. The trio, who carry out as Twinkle Time, might be returning this 12 months. (Shmuel Thaler/Santa Cruz Sentinel file)

WATSONVILLE — In lower than a month, the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds might be full of the sounds of dwell music, the sights of giddy households of all ages and the smells of fried meals and cotton sweet.

The Santa Cruz County Fair will return Sept. 13-17 with the theme “Home Grown and Locally Shown” and the standard assortment of carnival rides, contests, leisure and culinary favorites equivalent to cinnamon rolls and fried artichokes that fairgoers have come to count on for generations.

The preparations have been fairly an expertise for brand spanking new truthful supervisor and CEO Zeke Fraser, who was employed in June as a everlasting successor to Dave Kegebein, who was fired by the fair board in October following allegations of utilizing a enterprise debit card for private purchases and never supporting them with a receipt or bill.

Fitting for a good, Fraser described the expertise of getting the truthful prepared in a brief timeframe as “a nonstop rollercoaster.”

“We hit the ground running, and we haven’t stopped,” he stated.

With practically a month to go till the grand opening, all the weather are in place for the truthful, and Fraser couldn’t be extra excited.

“What we’re gearing up for is a great return of the fair in all of its former glory,” he stated. “All we need is for the people to come out and enjoy it.”

As all the time, the truthful may have loads of actions for younger and previous alike. The carnival halfway may have an assortment of rides and video games, Cartoon Poodles will function antics carried out by colourful pooches, hypnotist Michael Mezmer will actually convey viewers members right into a trance, Frank Thurston will carry out magic, Jeremy the Juggler will entertain with juggling and unicycle acts and Los Moralitos will convey circus acts. There can even be favorites equivalent to a monster truck motocross present, pig races, camel rides, a mechanical bull, charra present and a dwell sloth who might be chilling amid the motion.

Live leisure will embody Santa Cruz-based traditional rock and R&B tribute band Tsunami, Alameda-based Beatles tribute band The Sun Kings, singing cowboy Cisco Jim and a trio of bilingual kids’s performers often called Twinkle Time.

Those wishing to enter animals, produce or artwork into the truthful have loads of classes. In addition to poultry and livestock auctions, there are additionally contests for baked apple pies, cookies, quilts, knitting, floriculture, Lego shows, work, preserved meals, images, poetry and extra. The deadline for many departments is Aug. 24, and entries are nonetheless being accepted. More particulars might be discovered within the official entry information, which is accessible on-line at SantaCruzCountyFair.com and in onerous copies at native libraries, feed shops and the truthful workplace at 2601 E. Lake Ave., Watsonville.

Events this 12 months embody a particular admission day on opening day for seniors, kids and veterans and Education Day on Sept. 14, the place college students from space faculties may have the fairgrounds to themselves earlier than it opens to the general public.

The largest problem for Fraser in placing the truthful on this 12 months has been the restricted time between his hiring and opening day and misplaced preparation time because of the fairgrounds getting used as an evacuation middle in the course of the winter storms in January and the Pajaro River flooding in March, which has led to much more preparation.

“We are working night and day to catch up to where we should have been when I was onboarded,” he stated. “You have to stick with it every day, you’ve got a day and a half worth of things to do.”

Thankfully, Fraser stated, the onerous work of the truthful’s volunteers had made the method simpler.

“They are the life’s blood at this fair,” he stated. “We couldn’t be where we are right now without their endless help and support.”

Fraser is wanting ahead to festivities getting underway, which is able to kick off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sept. 13.

“I’m just excited to experience the fair from this side of things, being able to walk the grounds and see the people and see it all come together,” he stated.

For info on the truthful, go to SantaCruzCountyFair.com.