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Opening Day For The Big E's 17-Day Run

ESE

The largest fair in the Northeast opens its gates to the public Friday morning in western Massachusetts.

 The Big E has set attendance records in each of the last three years making it the fifth largest fair in North America. 

The fair, which will mark its centennial next year, has stayed true to its roots as a showplace for New England agriculture and industry, according to Big E President Gene Cassidy.

" We celebrate a mechanism that drives our economy: jobs, industry, agriculture, best practices. We do that by attracting people to the fair in a very Americana-way of family entertainment," said Cassidy.

New this year is a Big E mobile app to help guide people around the fairgrounds in West Springfield.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.