JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The Great American State Fair begins in D.C. this week as part of the country's 250th anniversary celebrations. It is bringing a Ferris wheel, carnival food and hundreds of exhibits to the National Mall, even as some state leaders have decided not to participate. NPR's Rachel Treisman joins us now to talk about what we can expect. Hi there.
RACHEL TREISMAN, BYLINE: Hello.
SUMMERS: All right, Rachel, this sounds like quite the production. What more will the fair entail?
TREISMAN: Right. So the action starts with a kick-off rally on Wednesday night and will run daily through July 10. Now, this is a free, rain or shine, all-day event that will span 10 blocks of the National Mall. Organizers are promising military flyovers, movie screenings and even a daily rodeo. They say there will be over 150 pavilions, so one for every U.S. state and territory and then others run by a wide range of companies and agencies - we're talking John Deere, NASA, Meta and many others. Each of the 16 days of the fair will have its own theme. So for example, there will be two MAHA Mondays, and, of course, July 4 is the big Independence Day celebration.
SUMMERS: OK. So there will be booths for every state, but as I understand, not all states are involved. How's that work?
TREISMAN: Exactly. We've confirmed at least 10 state governments are not participating directly, including Vermont, Illinois, North Carolina and Hawaii. So they're not spending state funds on their exhibits or sending any staff to D.C. Organizers of the fair say all of the states will still be represented. It's just that for some of them, their booth may be run by a tourism board or a company or organization from that state. Most of the states that opted out are blue states, but they say they were making a purely financial decision. Here's Cathryn Vaulman, a spokesperson for Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont.
CATHRYN VAULMAN: Getting staffers down to D.C., housing them, feeding them, and with the booth and everything that that would entail, the estimated budget was at least $100,000.
TREISMAN: Other states estimated costs as high as half a million dollars without any federal subsidies, and they all said they wanted to focus their limited resources on state celebrations. Though, governors in Massachusetts and Oregon also voiced political concerns, including that the event has become too partisan.
SUMMERS: Who's behind the event?
TREISMAN: A group called Freedom 250, which describes itself as nonpartisan but is aligned with the White House. And it says both private and public funds are paying for the fair. President Trump created Freedom 250 last year through an executive order, and some critics saw that as an effort to bypass a commission that Congress had formed for this exact same reason a decade ago. So we now have two groups. America 250 is mostly planning community-level events like block parties and concerts, and Freedom 250 is behind a lot of high-profile D.C. events - so the state fair, also the White House UFC fight and an auto race coming up in August.
SUMMERS: And just to close with some historical context here, how has America celebrated big birthdays in the past?
TREISMAN: Yeah. I talked to a bunch of historians about this, and there's been a huge variety. For example, Philadelphia hosted a hugely successful World's Fair in 1876 and a sort of disastrous one in 1926. This year, there are tons of national and local celebrations happening across the country. And of course, many U.S. cities are hosting the World Cup. There are not any soccer matches happening in D.C., but there is a viewing zone on the National Mall, right near the state fair.
SUMMERS: NPR's Rachel Treisman, thanks.
TREISMAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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