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A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks.


Types

Variations of fairs include: * Art fairs, including art exhibitions and
arts festival An arts festival is a festival that can encompass a wide range of art forms including music, dance, film, fine art, literature, poetry and isn't solely focused on visual arts. Arts festivals may feature a mixed program that include music, lit ...
s * County fair (USA) or county show (UK), a public agricultural show exhibiting the equipment, animals, sports and recreation associated with agriculture and animal husbandry. *
Festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...
, an event ordinarily coordinated with a theme e.g. music, art, season, tradition, history, ethnicity, religion, or a national holiday. * Health fair, an event designed for outreach to provide basic preventive medicine and medical screening * Historical reenactments, including
Renaissance fair A Renaissance fair, Renaissance faire or Renaissance festival is an outdoor gathering open to the public and typically commercial in nature, which purportedly recreates a historical setting for the amusement of its guests. Some are permanent the ...
s and
Dickens fair A Dickens fair, Dickens Christmas fair, or Dickens festival is a weekend or multi-weekend gathering, usually held in the United States, open to the public and typically commercial in nature, which attempts to recreate a Victorian English setting ...
s *
Horse fair A horse fair is a (typically annual) fair where people buy and sell horses. In the United Kingdom there are many fairs which are traditionally attended by Romani people and travellers who converge at the fairs to buy and sell horses, meet with ...
, an event where people buy and sell horses. * Job fair, event in which employers, recruiters, and schools give information to potential employees. * Regional or state fair, an annual competitive and recreational gathering. Including exhibits or competitors that have won in their categories at the local fairs. * Science fair, a competitive event for entries employ the scientific method to test a hypothesis. * A town/city's street fair or market, including charter fairs, celebrates character of a neighborhood and local merchants. * Temple fair or miaohui, yearly fair held in temples of various religions * Trade fair, an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products and services, study activities of rivals, and examine recent market trends and opportunities. * Traveling funfair or carnival, an amusement show made up of amusement rides, food vending stalls, merchandise vending stalls, games of "chance and skill", thrill acts and (now less commonly) animal acts. * Village fair or fête, an elaborate periodic festival, party or celebration. Held by the locals to original to celebrate a good harvests or religious gatherings. *
World's fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
, an international exhibition designed to showcase achievements of nations


History

The
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
fairs were holidays on which work and business such as law courts were suspended. In the Roman provinces of
Judea Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous so ...
and
Syria Palaestina Syria Palaestina (literally, "Palestinian Syria";Trevor Bryce, 2009, ''The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia''Roland de Vaux, 1978, ''The Early History of Israel'', Page 2: "After the revolt of Bar Cochba in 135 ...
, Jewish
rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form o ...
s prohibited
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
from participating in fairs in certain towns because the religious nature of the fairs contravened the prescribed practice of
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in th ...
. In the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, many fairs developed as temporary markets and were especially important for long-distance and
international trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy) In most countries, such trade represents a significa ...
, as wholesale traders travelled, sometimes for many days, to fairs where they could be sure to meet those they needed to buy from or sell to. The most famous were the
Champagne fairs The Champagne fairs were an annual cycle of trade fairs which flourished in different towns of the County of Champagne in Northeastern France in the 12th and 13th centuries, originating in local agricultural and stock fairs. Each fair lasted about ...
in northern France, which were spread over six towns for a total period of about six weeks, drawing goods and customers from much of Europe. The Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, still the largest trade fair for the publishing industry, began in the 12th century as a fair for manuscript books. Fairs were usually tied to special Christian feast days, such as the Saint's day of the local church. Stagshaw in England, is documented to have held annual fairs as early as 1293 consisting of the sales of animals. Along with the main fair held on 4 July, the city also hosted smaller fairs throughout the year where specific types of animals were sold, such as one for horses, one for lambs, and one for ewes. The Kumbh Mela, held every twelve years, at Allahabad,
Haridwar Haridwar (; ) is a city and municipal corporation in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, India. With a population of 228,832 in 2011, it is the second-largest city in the state and the largest in the district. The city is situated on the ri ...
,
Nashik Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nash ...
, and
Ujjain Ujjain (, Hindustani pronunciation: �d͡ːʒɛːn is a city in Ujjain district of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the fifth-largest city in Madhya Pradesh by population and is the administrative centre of Ujjain district and Uj ...
is one of the largest fairs in India, where more than 60 million people gathered in January 2001, making it the largest gathering anywhere in the world. '' Kumbha'' means a pitcher and ''Mela'' means ''fair'' in Sanskrit. In the United States, fairs draw in as many as 150 million people each summer. Children's competitions at an American fair range from breeding small animals to robotics, whilst the organization 4-H has become a traditional association.


Sirsi Fair

The Sirsi Marikamba Devi Fair of the deity is held every alternate year in the month of March and taken through the city Sirsi, Karnataka. It is attended by a very large number of devotees. It is also most famous and biggest fair (Jaatre) of the India. Devotees from all around the state participate in this enormous event indulging themselves in the procession. Amusements for children, circuses, variety of shops, dramas and plays and many such things are set up for the people. It depicts the story of the goddess killing Mahishasura.


Legacy


Legal implications

Fairs attracted great numbers of people and they often resulted in public order issues and sometimes riots. The holding of fairs was, therefore, granted by
royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, b ...
. Initially they were only allowed in towns and places where order could be maintained due to the presence of a bishop, sheriff or governor. Later various benefits were granted to specific fairs, such as the granting of a holiday status to a fair or protections against arrest for specific laws for the duration of the fair. Officials were authorised to mete out justice to those who attended their fair; this led to even the smallest fair having a court to adjudicate on offences and disputes arising within the fairground. These courts were called a ''pye powder'' court (from
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...
''pieds pouldres'', literally "dusty feet", meaning an itinerant trader, from
Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
''pedes pulverosi'').


In art and language

The chaotic nature of the Stagshaw Bank Fair with masses of people and animals and stalls inspired the Newcastle colloquialism "like a Stagey Bank Fair" to describe a general mess. The American county fair is featured in E. B. White's '' Charlotte's Web''.


See also

* Art exhibition *
China fairing A china fairing is a small porcelain ornament, often incorporating figures, ranging from about three inches (7.5 cm) to about five inches (12.5 cm) in height, and depicting a variety of scenes, humorous, political or domestic. The orna ...
*
Lists of festivals This is a list of festival-related list articles on Wikipedia. A festival is an event ordinarily staged by a community, centering on and celebrating some unique aspect of that community and its traditions, often marked as a local or national holi ...


References


Further reading

* {{Authority control