RIPLEY, W.Va. - As part of an effort to reverse three consecutive years of red ink and dwindling crowds, the Mountain State Art & Craft Fair - the state's oldest heritage fair - is getting a name change, becoming a fall festival instead of a mid-summer event and looking for ways to connect with a younger audience to ensure that it has a future.
Members of the fair's governing board voted on Wednesday to change the three-day festival's name to "Mountain State Art & Craft Fair: An Appalachian Experience," and use the tagline: "An autumn celebration of art, food, music and culture" in promoting the event.
The decision to move the date of the fair from early July, usually coinciding with the Independence Day holiday weekend, to Sept. 16-18, was made during last month's board meeting.
"This will be a re-growth year for the fair," said Karen Facemyer, a former state senator who serves as president of the festival's governing board. "It may be a little smaller than it has been in the past, but we hope to expand in the future."
Part of the reason for the date switch involves a schedule conflict with Ripley's annual Fourth of July Festival, which culminates in America's largest small-town parade on Independence Day. This year's event included five days of pre-parade activities.
"We've heard from Ripley Mayor Carolyn Rader, and she supports the Fair's move to September," said Facemyer.
Moving the fair to September also would make it possible to bring school groups to the festival to learn about the state's heritage, said board member Jason Hughes.
"Summer is the wrong time of the year to get young people involved," he said, citing family vacations and youth sports.
Facemyer said Rader, a retired teacher, has agreed to promote and coordinate field trips to the fair with school officials in the region.
"We need to take a look at what younger people want - that's our challenge," said board member Steve Castle, who also serves as Tamarack's product development coordinator. "The fair is at risk because our market is getting older. People who used to visit the fair don't travel any more."
While the format for next year's fair remains fluid, long range plans call for grouping exhibitors, musicians, food vendors and historical interpreters into villages representing the major ethnic backgrounds of West Virginia's settlers along the shores of the ponds at the Cedar Lakes Conference Center, which hosts the annual event.
"We won't be excluding anyone who has exhibited at the fair, but we will be adding things that will get people in the gates," Facemyer said.
In addition to juried artisans and crafters, the fair will allow vendors of non-juried crafts to sell their wares. West Virginia craft breweries may be invited to join state wine producers, who offered tastings and sold their product during last year's fair.
"When you turn the main focus from arts and crafts and diversify into antiques and non-juried crafts, your reputation suffers," said stained glass artist and jeweler Rick Gallagher of Harmony, during a public comment period during Wednesday's meeting.
Changes in dates and venues have had a crippling effect on major craft shows in Atlanta and Cincinnati, said Gallagher, a 30-year exhibitor at the Cedar Lakes event.
"The fair was at risk of being shut down after three years of losses in a row," said Hughes. "We have to add more activities to draw more people to the fair. Just arts and crafts won't do it. We need to draw the crowds needed to buy your products."
Potter Anne Swadley of Harrisville, who represents the West Virginia Art and Craft Guild on the fair's governing board, said a number of guild members see the switch to a September date as having been "rushed through, without input from the fair's family in general. There needs to be more time for discussion of something of this magnitude."
Immediately after the 2015 show, the fair board announced that the 2016 fair would be held from June 30 to July 2. Changing the fair date to September should happen in 2017, giving exhibitors more time to plan for the change, a number of guild members have argued.
Facemyer said a vote on the show date change, which had been contemplated by the board in past years and was supported this year by a number of exhibitors, needed to be made in a timely manner to give exhibitors as much time as possible to adjust their schedules and production plans.
Castle, who questioned whether it would have been better to start the September fair schedule in 2017, said change was needed, regardless of when it arrived.
"It is a big move," he said. "But if we keep the fair the way it is now and don't change anything, it will die."
Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelhammer@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5169, or follow @rsteelhammer on Twitter.