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Topsfield Fair gets set to again be an American classic

Ron Wallace celebrated after winning the Giant Pumpkin Contest with his 2,009-pound entry, which set a world record in 2012. Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe/File

When the Flying Wallendas bring their high-wire act to this year’s Topsfield Fair, they will be returning for the fourth time. Chubby Checker also has appeared at the fair four times, most recently in 2010.

But it seems fitting the act with the most Topsfield Fair appearances would be the band named America. The California rock band has performed six times since 1999, most recently in 2014.

Few public attractions define what’s American as clearly as the classic agricultural fair, and the Topsfield Fair, set to celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2018, bills itself as the country’s oldest. From the livestock demonstrations and annual giant pumpkin contest to carnival games, thrill rides, and monster truck shows, the fair encompasses two centuries of family entertainment in the United States.

This year’s fair will feature shows by two crowd-pleasing headliners of similar vintage, the disco-era KC and the Sunshine Band and Flint, Mich., hard rockers Grand Funk Railroad. The fair, which kicks off Friday, Sept. 30, and runs through Oct. 10, also features the lifelong teen idol Frankie Avalon (who just turned 76), country duo Brothers Osborne, and the New Orleans-based children’s music showmen Imagination Movers.

“Anything’s on the table,” says Jim O’Brien, the fair’s general manager, who has been with the organization since 1980. “People will say, ‘I’d like to see X, Y, or Z,’ and we’ll check it out, see if they’re routing this way. We do our homework.”

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For O’Brien, Wednesday night entertainment at the fair tends toward the oldies, since for younger kids, it’s a school night. Thursday might feature an act that could attract a young-adult crowd.

“On Friday, there’s nothing like a good country act,” he says. And the fair’s main events on the second Saturday — for which there’s a ticket fee not included in paid admissions — are the groups, such as KC and the Sunshine Band, that can appeal to the widest range of fair-goers.

While researching for the upcoming 200th anniversary, O’Brien has uncovered information about entertainment acts at least as far back as the 1920s, he says.

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“We had the diving horse and the guy who got shot out of a cannon,” he says. “One year, they had a water show with synchronized swimming — whatever happens to be popular at the time.”

Lawrence Welk once visited the fair. So did the J. Geils Band. When the country music group Lady Antebellum played a few years ago, “Nobody knew they were going to be stars,” says O’Brien, a Peabody native who oversaw Brooksby Farm in Peabody before joining the fair.

On the midway, new attractions for this year include the Cyclone roller coaster, just imported from Italy; a giant slide; and the Hotshot, a 30-foot “drop tower” for kids. The midway is operated by Seabrook, N.H.-based Fiesta Shows, which has been the fair’s exclusive carnival partner since 1950.

The company typically transports more than half of its 100 or so rides and attractions to Topsfield, says Dean Flynn, grandson of one of the cofounders.

“It’s the largest single event that we do,” says Flynn. He can remember attending the fair as a child, when his father and grandfather ran the amusement company, which started in Salisbury.

“It’s our hometown fair, so obviously, being from Essex County, we take great pride in it,” Flynn says. “It’s one of the few fairs that have truly kept that hometown feeling. As much as the commercialization and modernization have developed, the fair has done a phenomenal job maintaining its agricultural presentation, going to the roots of the fair industry.”

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From its conception at the old Cyrus Cummings Tavern in Topsfield in 1818, when a few dozen local leaders laid the foundation for the Essex Agricultural Society, the event now known as the Topsfield Fair originated with a cattle show held on Oct. 5, 1820. In 1910, the fair moved to its current location along Route 1, on the former site of the Treadwell Farm.

Today, the fair is big business, drawing an estimated 500,000 visitors each year.

In recent decades, country music and oldies acts have proven popular with the fair’s multigenerational visitors. Johnny Cash played the fair in 1991 — “I talked to him for two or three hours, just a regular guy,” says O’Brien — and Waylon Jennings in 1994. The Charlie Daniels Band has played twice, in 1993 and in 2004. The rock ’n’ roll revivalists Sha Na Na also played the fair twice, as have Bill Haley’s Comets, the Drifters, and the Platters.

Sometimes, O’Brien stumbles onto a successful act he’s less familiar with. He was on the fence about booking a teenager named Austin Mahone in 2012, he says. But he let a few younger colleagues persuade him to take a shot.

“He brought about six or seven young ladies onstage, singing to them,” O’Brien recalls. “He kissed one of them on the cheek, and she passed out. I said, ‘Wow, this is like the old days — like the Beatles or something!’ ”

The last time Chubby Checker appeared in Topsfield six years ago, O’Brien sent out staffers to round up every hula hoop they could find at toy stores. They gave them to the kids, who had at least as much fun at the show as those who were old enough to remember when the star’s biggest hit came out.

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Nice twist.


James Sullivan can be reached at jamesgsullivan@gmail.com.