LBA Cancels Larchmont Family Fair

Sadly, the Larchmont Family Fair won’t happen this year, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though the late-October event is months away, the Fair’s organizer, the Larchmont Boulevard Association (LBA), decided it just won’t be able to pull off all the organizational tasks necessary to make the fair happen.

“We start now requesting permits from the City and we know they are not going to grant them now,” Fair Co-chair Vivian Gueler, Chief Financial Officer of Pacific Trust Group, told the Buzz.

Gueler said much of the work for the fair gets done months in advance and there’s too much uncertainty right now to make the significant financial commitments for rides and games. In addition, she said, now is the time she would normally start asking local businesses to help underwrite the cost of the Fair…and “It’s also a really hard time to ask our members, merchants and businesses on Larchmont, and other businesses in the neighborhood, to help us with sponsorships,” said Gueler.

The Larchmont Family Fair draws more than 10,000 residents to the annual fair, which takes place the Sunday before Halloween along a two-block stretch of Larchmont Boulevard. The Fair features a talent show, costume contest, pie-eating contest, games and activities, as well as promotional booths hosted by educational institutions and nonprofits.

The Family Fair goes back to 1966, when the founding editors of the Larchmont Chronicle, Dawne Goodwin and Jane Gilman, hatched the idea to provide a venue for local schools and charities to raise funds for their organizations. The pair also founded the LBA to support local merchants and businesses on Larchmont. 

Gueler said the LBA is considering ways to more “remotely” assist Fair-participant schools and charities later this year – around the time previously scheduled for the 2020 Family Fair.  If you have ideas about what could be done during this temporary hiatus, and/or if you would like to join a local committee to discuss such ideas, please reach out via email to [email protected]

“The LBA intends that the Family Fair will be back, bigger and better than ever, around Halloween of 2021,” wrote the LBA in an email announcing the cancellation of this year’s event.