FAIRfest
Mission:
To celebrate the best of Fairfield and Iowa, featuring national, regional and local music, artisan food, top speakers, speciality vendors and cultural leaders, with an emphasis on sustainable solutions, creative expression, economic fairness and community empowerment.
Vision:
Combining entertainment and cultural elements, FAIRfest is designed to entice people from across the state to enjoy Fairfield's unique flavors and act as an economic driver for area businesses. By providing a showcase for the community to share its passions and interests with a wider audience; it will highlight an array of musical performances, artisan food, sustainability experts, writers, filmmakers, community leaders and organizations, and more.
History:
Fairfield has a great tradition of restaurants, art galleries, summer square concerts, and the award-winning First Fridays Artwalk series. When community well-wishers approached KRUU with the idea of providing an endowment to create an annual multi-day, multi-genre festival, it seemed like a natural fit--and a lot of hard work!
Hope:
Our desire is for FAIRfest to become one of the best excuses of the year for people to explore southeast Iowa's creative, entrepreneurial, cuisine-rich community which Smithsonian magazine deemed one of the country’s most intriguing cultural cities for arts and smarts; to serve Fairfield as a feeder for its organizations, commercial ventures, activities and educational components with everyone welcome at the table; and to inspire sustainable solutions on the grassroots community level.
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Smithsonian magazine ranked Fairfield #7 on its 2013 list of national Top 10 "Best Small Towns to Visit", one of the country's "most intriguing places to enjoy arts & smarts." And now we’ve got the perfect excuse to invite friends and family to come visit us--Fairfield's annual signature event: FAIRfest!
The multi-day, multi-genre event features national, regional and local entertainment, innovative speakers, artisan food, speciality vendors, cultural events, art and film, in multiple venues, with a focus on sustainable solutions, community empowerment, economic fairness, film, writing, and more, all centered around the beautiful Fairfield Arts & Convention Center with indoor and outdoor stages.
Spearheaded by solar-powered KRUU100.1 FM, Fairfield’s nonprofit volunteer radio station, FAIRfest also highlights writers/poets, dancers, filmmakers, educators and sustainability experts. Last year's keynote speaker was Jeffrey Hollender, adjunct Professor for sustainability at NYU, co-chair of Greenpeace US, and co-founder of Seventh Generation and the American Sustainable Business Council, a coalition of 200,000 business leaders that has been dubbed the Chamber of Progress. Hollender helped launch the Iowa Sustainable Business Alliance, a statewide organization based in Fairfield and festival cosponsor.
And good news for food lovers, too! Thanks to Steve Boss, host of KRUU's live cooking program GREAT TASTE, there is as much attention on food as there is on entertainment, highlighting some of the finest local, homemade, artisan food from across Iowa complete with a rich array of outdoor food vendors, as well as a bevy of corollary cultural, literary, creative, photographic, and artistic events. Last year KTVO covered Steve Boss' special presentation with top Iowa chef Matt Steigerwald and Art Fifty Two, ICON Gallery and the Convention Center featured the photography of Tony Ellis.
KRUU’s station manager James Moore says, “We want FAIRfest to be one of the best excuses of the year for people to explore southeast Iowa's creative, cultural, cuisine-rich community. It’s designed to showcase the best of Fairfield and Iowa, and to entice people to come from far and wide to share some big small town fun with us. And everyone is welcome at the table.”