What could be the biggest attraction at this year’s Denver County Fair stems from a typo in a story about a past year’s fair.
One year the Denver County Fair had a kitchen pavilion, but a reporter misheard and thought it was a kitten pavilion. And thus, the idea for the 2015 kitten pavilion was born.
“Once you hear that, it was all I could think about,” Denver County Fair co-owner and co-founder Dana Cain said. “I wanted a sanctioned cat show and it mushroomed from there.”
Cain is getting just what she wanted this year as the fair is dedicating 15,000 square feet to all things feline. The kitten pavilion will include an Internet cat film festival and an appearance by the . Due to medical problems, she will never grow larger than kitten sized.
But that’s not all that’s happening at this year’s Denver County Fair, which is celebrating its fifth year July 31-Aug. 2 at the National Western Complex.
Music, a beetown display, freak show, drag queen beauty contest and carnival are just some of what’s in store this year for what is called the “craziest county fair in America.”
“I really liked that,” Cain said of the designation.
Just don’t expect a this year. The feature debuted last year but has been discontinued.
Denver’s fair is unique and that’s the way Cain and co-founder Tracy Weil like it. Instead of pony rides and livestock, this fair has chickens, guinea pigs and unicorn rides as well as a Saturday pancake breakfast and Sunday burrito breakfast courtesy of entertainment director and breakfast boss Andrew Novick.
“We try and showcase things in an urban sense,” Novick said. “We do have animals, but only animals legal in Denver.”
Weil said he first noticed that Denver was lacking a county fair in 2010, coincidentally the year chicken ownership was legalized in Denver. He enlisted Cain to help organize due to her experience in event planning. The National Western Complex was really the only option in their eyes as a location.
“I’ve done large events before, but (Cain) really specializes in the vendor-based model and knows great vendors. She’s been doing this for years,” Weil said. “It was a pretty daunting task, but it’s been fun, we’ve had a good time and gotten a great response. We wanted to reinvent the county fair from years past.”
Greg Rye goes to many Denver-area fairs with his Wheat Ridge-based beekeeping business, Dakota Bees. The Denver County Fair is one of the better ones in his eyes as he gets good placement and sees that it’s growing each year.
“The Denver fair is a big one, there’s a lot of people there,” Rye said. “I was there the first year they did it. I want to say it’s definitely grown.”
For Marie Vlasic, her motivation for attending the fair this year is the chase of a blue ribbon for her cookies.
She’s won second and third place for her “unusual” chocolate chip cookies, but is hoping this is her year.
“First place is vexing me,” she said. “I want it.”
The blue ribbon has already found Vlasic for her painting, however, taking top honors at a past fair. This year she’s working on a mural for the cat pavilion.
“It’s so unusual, there’s so much bizarre stuff going on,” Vlasic said. “I’m not into the ordinary stuff. The bizarre competitions are just so fun.”
Joe Vaccarelli: 303-954-2396, jvaccarelli@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joe_vacc
Denver County Fair
When: Noon-8 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday
Where: National Western Complex, 4655 Humboldt St.
See ticket costs online at
