The 2025 Tennessee Valley Fair begins today at Chilhowee Park. For the next 10 days, in scenes that have been repeated for decades, Ferris wheels will spin, youngsters will consume cotton candy and funnel cakes, judges will pick the region’s best livestock and produce, bands will perform, and about 140,000 people will engage in a traditional Knoxville celebration.

The fair expects about 140,000 visitors, the vast majority of them local residents.

Behind the scenes, however, the future of the fair is growing more uncertain. Knoxville city government is moving to turn Chilhowee Park into more of a year-round amenity for local residents, while fair organizers are looking to grow — perhaps even to relocate.

In recent interviews, City officials and the fair’s management have said that they want the fair to stay in Chilhowee Park and thrive, but both also leave room for the possibility that the fair’s run could end in the coming years.

David Brace, chief of staff to Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon, said the City has been a partner with the fair for longer than a century. “We love the fair and we want to see the fair continue, but there need to be new investments at Chilhowee Park that serve the residents that live around it every single day,” he said.

Scott Suchomski, the fair’s executive director, said the event has touched generations of local families. “It’s tradition, it’s history, it’s family,” he said, though he acknowledged that the city is growing and circumstances shift: “To be a 105-year-old institution, we’ve had to change; we’ve had to stay current.”

Knoxville’s Fair

The fair dates back to 1916, when business interests and the University of Tennessee launched the East Tennessee Division Fair to build on the success of the 1910 Appalachian Exposition and the National Conservation Exposition of 1913, which attracted more than a million visitors. But the fair’s roots predate the Civil War, according to Knoxville History Project Executive Director Jack Neely. 

“We’ve been having East Tennessee fairs showcasing both agricultural and industrial products since 1854,” he said. “Some of its roots go back to the old October Carnivals that were held in the streets downtown in the 1890s. Chilhowee Park, which had hosted lots of festive events since the 1880s, became central to the idea at the time of the first Appalachian Exposition in 1910.”

The fair has changed names over the past 109 years, but it has been held every year since then — interrupted only by World War II and a pair of pandemics — at Chilhowee Park.

While the carnival in the midway is flashy, agricultural education is at the heart of the fair’s mission. Livestock and horticultural shows and competitions keep the fair grounded in tradition.

When the fair established itself, Chilhowee Park, a former farm, was at the edge of town; it’s now in the urban core inside the Interstate 640 loop. But the fair’s consistent presence over the years has embedded it into Knoxville’s culture, even as agriculture has diminished in its economic importance and the city has grown around Chilhowee Park. 

“It has always been fun, but it has also always served practical purposes, like demonstrating new products and techniques and rewarding achievements in agriculture and even cuisine,” Neely said. “And it has had a big impact, culturally, on the region. James Agee described it vividly in a story, and the teenaged Cormac McCarthy’s first published piece, in the Catholic High newspaper, was about sneaking into the fair without paying. “The Everly Brothers met Chet Atkins at the fair, which became a happily fateful association for them. The first time Knoxville ever saw Reba McEntire was at the fair, and the last time we saw James Brown perform here was at the fair.” 

Fairs have seen a decline in recent decades. Many states have fairs — the Tennessee State Fair moved from Nashville to Lebanon in 2021 and was held last month — but Knoxville is one of just a few American cities that cling to the tradition.

The Business of the Fair

The modern Tennessee Valley Fair is a nonprofit organization that exists almost exclusively to put on the regional exposition every September. According to its publicly available tax return, the fair took in slightly more than $3 million in 2024 against expenditures of nearly $2.5 million, finishing the year $562,536 in the black.

The city subsidizes the fair to the tune of $203,000, including free rent for the park and its facilities for the duration of the event (including setup and breakdown) — valued at $159,000, according to SMG, the firm that manages Chilhowee Park for the city — plus $40,000 worth of free office space and a $4,000 community grant.

The Jacob Building, with Lake Ottosee in the foreground.

In turn, the fair allows the city free use of a parking lot and other property it owns adjacent to Chilhowee Park, and minor maintenance such as painting.

The Tennessee Valley Fair’s board of directors includes notable Knoxville and Knox County leaders such as Brad Anders, Dino Cartwright, Dean Farmer, Frank Rothermel, Ed Shouse and Clarence Vaughn.

Management of the fair operations, however, seems more of a family business. Former Executive Director Larry Suchomski led the committee that selected his son Scott to take over as general manager (now executive director) in 2006. Scott Suchomski’s daughter, Abby Villas, is the marketing director.

“I think it generally just kind of talks to the fair really being a family thing,” Suchomski said. “I’m the caretaker of the fair, which is an institution, too, for this brief period of time, because now we’re stretching over 105 years. So if I’m the director for 15 years, that’s a small blip in the timeline of the fair.”

Suchomski made $195,838 in 2024, and the fair’s overall payroll — three full-time and three part-time staff, plus numerous seasonal workers — was $669,664.

Preparing to put on the fair takes longer than a year. Kissel Entertainment, which is the carnival contractor, sets its schedule two years in advance, and bookings for national touring acts begin 12 to 18 months ahead of time. Other arrangements take up to a year.

The fair generates economic activity, but its impact is softened by the pool of fairgoers it attracts. A fair-commissioned report from 2018 showed an economic impact of $11.47 million, but nearly half of that came from locals.

Of the fair’s roughly 140,000 visitors, 84 percent were from Knoxville and Knox County. The report noted that the money they spent at the fair would have otherwise been spent on other activities locally. A large number of out-of-towners drove in from surrounding counties and did not spend the night in Knoxville. Most of the out-of-towners — 75 percent — who spent one or more nights in Knoxville stayed in private homes, presumably with family or friends, not in area hotels.

Out-of-town direct spending was $3.96 million, and the ripple effect (indirect and induced spending, in industry jargon) brought the total to  approximately $6.9 million.

Suchomski said the event is the largest put on by an area nonprofit, but it’s far from the biggest tourism event on the calendar. During an average UT football weekend in 2016, according to a UT economic-impact report, visitors from outside Knox County (70 percent of all gameday visitors) generated an impact of $41.7 million. 

The fair also has established a separate foundation geared toward agricultural education that offers 10 scholarships, worth $1,000 each, to area students each year. They include the Dwight Kessel Leadership Scholarship, the Jacob-Hamilton Scholarship for the arts, and awards for raising beef cattle and rabbits, photography, and more. The Fairest of the Fair and the Junior Fairest of the Fair also receive scholarships. 

Visions In and Out of Focus

Miscommunication has strained the relationship between the city and the fair, as recent developments involving the Jacob Building show.

The Jacob Building, Chilhowee Park’s largest structure at about 57,000 square feet, was completed in 1941 and has been central to the fair’s operations ever since (with the exception of closures during World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic). 

Today, the fair uses the Jacob Building for commercial vendors, culinary arts and robotics competitions, photography and student art exhibits, horticulture displays and more. 

Last month, however, City Council approved leasing the Jacob Building to Muse Knoxville, which plans to renovate the structure into a state-of-the-art children’s science museum. The fair will be able to use the building through 2026. 

Suchomski said the action took him and other fair officials by surprise, though the City first raised the possibility six years ago. He said he’s been preparing for this year’s fair and hasn’t had time to begin planning how to replace the Jacob Building.

Suchomski said the Kincannon administration has kept him in the dark about its long-range plans for Chilhowee Park, even though the fair uses it 23 days a year, more than any other single entity. The City has asked for the fair’s strategic plan, he said, but developing one is difficult when the fair has only a short-term lease and doesn’t know the administration’s intentions.

Chilhowee Park.

“Every time we turn around, we seem like we’re losing land or facilities, and we are actually wanting to grow,” Suchomski said. “We’re still trying to figure out how we can get the City to understand (that) we would like to be part of it out here. I just don’t know if we’re still even on their vision, to be able to be part of it.”

Brace said the Kincannon administration has been crystal clear that it intends to follow guidance from the 2019 Chilhowee Park & Exposition Center Strategic Plan, which included the possibility of Muse Knoxville moving into the Jacob Building.

“The master plan in 2019 was an opportunity to get feedback from the public, and there was an extensive process,” he said. “It really talked about the desires that the community wanted with that space, which was more green space, walking trails, more park amenities, improvements and active space year round. I think we’re in keeping with that plan.”

Brace said the administration has been flexible with the fair. Fair officials have been using the old midway property on the south side of Magnolia Avenue as a staging and parking area for years. When the City decided to sell the property to the Emerald Youth Foundation, the administration offered the use of the Knoxville Fire Department training facility on the other side of Interstate 40 from Chilhowee Park to the fair.

The deal also includes security, electrical and water hookups, and the closure of a section of Prosser Road for access between the sites and parking.

“That was at least something that we were able to work out with the City,” Suchomski said. “We can make it work.” 

Brace called it a “great example” of how the City can help find a solution that will help make the fair successful, and he’s confident that the two entities can work together to find space for the functions currently housed in the Jacob Building.

“We just need the fair to help work with us on what those might be,” he said. “The fair has smart people and I know we’re smart people, and we can find a solution to that as well. We look forward to talking with them about that, once the fair wraps up this year.”

The park’s strategic plan recommends building a new exhibit hall that could fit the bill, but the City has no immediate plans to build one. “These plans evolve over a long time,” Brace said, pointing to the 19-year-old South Waterfront plan that is still guiding development there.

Options

Suchomski pointed to a key recommendation from the park’s strategic plan to support his contention that the city wants the fair to move. The report stated that the city should relocate the fair to more efficiently use the park property for year-round activity.

“Recognizing the long-standing history and community importance of the Tennessee Valley Fair, it is recommended that any ultimate master plan and funding strategy for improvements at Chilhowee Park also include the identification of a financially-viable path forward that would allow Fair owners and stakeholders to continue producing the Fair in Knoxville at an alternate site,” the report stated.

The report said an alternate site of up to 100 acres would increase the fair’s ability to accommodate year-round livestock, agricultural and equestrian activity that’s not possible now at Chilhowee Park. 

The City hasn’t looked for an alternate site, but the fair has. Suchomski has teamed up with Knox County government and the UT Institute of Agriculture to find a suitable site for an agricultural center. UTIA Senior Vice Chancellor and Senior Vice President Keith Carver serves on the Tennessee Valley Fair Board of Directors.

“We’ve kind of seen the writing on the wall,” Suchomski said. “We’ve outgrown certain aspects of this (park), especially up in the livestock campus. … I would not be an effective leader if I didn’t start saying, ‘What are my options? If it comes down to this, do we want to move?’ No, we really don’t, but we may because we have to.”

Brace said the fair chief has not officially notified the administration that he’s looking at other locations.

“We have communicated directly to Scott that we want them to stay in the city,” he said. “We want them to be here, but ultimately, they’re a nonprofit and will have to make a decision about their future. But we love them being at Chilhowee Park and in East Knoxville.”