SCRANTON, Pa. -- For the first time in its history, Lackawanna County will have its own fair.
The first Lackawanna County Heritage Fair is planned for the spring of 2019.
Lackawanna County is surrounded by counties that each have their own fair. For the past few years, a committee has been looking at whether a Lackawanna County fair would work.
The Heritage Fair is what they came up with and its planned for an unconventional venue.
The snow melting off the roof of the Pavilion at Montage Mountain in Scranton can make you long for spring and Lackawanna County commissioners came here to look further into the future -- to spring of 2019 and Lackawanna County's first-ever fair. The Heritage Fair, as it will be called, will be held on the grounds of the concert pavilion.
Unconventional, but manager Jeremy Ruby says it makes a lot of sense.
"I'm interested, we've thrown a lot of ideas around and I'm interested to see and learn what we develop over the next several months. We think it's going to be a great event. If we do it right this first year, I expect this thing to be here for, probably until I'm long gone," Ruby said.
The pavilion connects to several other attractions and parking areas, all along two miles of road.
Fair committee members say another reason why they picked the pavilion is that there are already existing buildings for vendors to serve food. Food, of course, will be a central part of a Heritage Fair.
"What we want to make certain is that because it's celebrating local heritage, to the extent that the local heritage involves local foods, we bring the churches in, we bring the volunteer fire companies in, we give them the opportunity to put their foodstuffs out there, whatever they want to market," said fair committee member Armand Olivetti.
The specifics will be figured out over the next year. Organizers say since Lackawanna County isn't as well known for its agriculture like some of its neighbors, this will be a fair all Lackawanna's own.
"When the committee looked at this, we looked at it as more than simply a fair. We looked at it as a marketing opportunity for the county, for what we have here. Let people know what we have and learn to appreciate it," Olivetti explained.
Fair organizers say within the next year they plan to reach out to the public for ideas on what they would like to see at the Lackawanna County Heritage Fair.