Over its long history in Wheaton, the DuPage County Fair has brought city folks closer to the farm.

Nowhere else in town can you come nose to snout with a blue-ribbon pig, dive face-first into a watermelon-eating contest, learn the art of growing tomatoes, watch a baby chick hatch into the world and follow a herd of sheep moving in sync.

The county fair, opening Thursday for a four-day run, will celebrate those rural-flavored traditions with a high-tech spectacle: a drone light show that promises to knock your cowboy boots off.

Highly choreographed drones will lift off at the north end of the fairgrounds and form all kinds of animated shapes some 400 feet in the night sky. Fair crowds will see a pig with a flicking tail, the Statue of Liberty and a sparkling Ferris wheel — all while country and patriotic anthems play over the sound system throughout the fairgrounds.

“I think we hit it out of the park,” fair organizer Jim McGuire says of the new display.

Up north, the Lake County Fair is already in full gear with an adrenaline-packed lineup. A “Monster Truck Throwdown” will kick up some dirt on Thursday and Friday, followed by a freestyle motocross show on Saturday and pro bull riding on Sunday.

After two years as a three-day event, the DuPage fair schedule has expanded to four. Billy Prine, brother of the late singer-songwriter John Prine, will take the beer garden stage Thursday, and a roving Mariachi Morelos will be part of a celebration of Mexican culture Saturday. And big-time amusement rides — the Pharaoh’s Fury, for one — are back in the center of the fairgrounds.

The Pharaoh’s Fury ride swings back and forth at the DuPage County Fair in Wheaton.
Daily Herald file photo

“We’re filling up with carnival rides throughout this whole area,” McGuire said during a golf-cart tour as crews put the final touches on the fair setup.

“This is going to be the largest Ferris wheel we’ve ever had on the fairgrounds. It’s a super large Ferris wheel.”

It’s another example of how suburban county fairs are returning to their pre-pandemic scale.

“We are a nonprofit that operates year-round, and the revenues that we generate, that gives us the opportunity to rebuild the fair,” said McGuire, executive manager of the DuPage County Fair Association.

When it’s not county fair season, trade shows, cultural gatherings, including the recent Chicago Scots’ Highland Games, and other events are hosted at the fairgrounds.

“So since COVID, when we had no activity or very minimal activity, that hurt us financially. We now are in a position where we’re bringing a lot more activities,” McGuire said.

Another returning act — the Bear Hollow Wood Carvers — will turn hefty logs into intricate works of art with a chain saw. McGuire remembers a feather sculpture as one example of their craftsmanship.

“I have a beautiful heron in my office that they did that’s just gorgeous,” McGuire said.

Sunflowers greet fairgoers at the DuPage County Fair in Wheaton.
Patrick Kunzer for the Daily Herald, 2023

He works to keep the grounds looking pretty with sunflowers and corn stalks. The main exhibition hall displays quilts and 4-H projects.

“It’s about sharing your talents and getting people to do better, whether it’s your livestock, whether it’s baking that pie,” McGuire said of the communal nature of the fair. “Hopefully, you’re going to share that recipe and tell the secrets so that the other person can bake a pie as good as you, and everyone gets better. It lifts everybody.”

While full livestock shows are a thing of the past, fair organizers stay true to the area’s agricultural roots but embrace some new, more relevant concepts.

That means the grounds will accommodate a grass volleyball tournament and “AgVentureland” — an area where kids can shell corn and zip around on a pedal tractor. The fair barns will house pigs and goats.

During the drone light show, you’ll see the outline of a tractor above the fairgrounds and hear a Lonestar song about how “there’s nothing bigger in small towns everywhere than the county fair.”

“We want you to come out and celebrate DuPage County,” McGuire said. “That’s what this is about. The fair is about being the place where the community gathers.”