OGDEN — The Weber County Fair is back, much bigger than last year’s scaled-back version and bigger, arguably, than it has been in recent years.

“We’re super-excited to get back to a level of normal,” Duncan Olsen, the general manager of the Golden Spike Event Center, said Tuesday, helping with the final fair preparations. The fair runs today through Saturday. “This year I feel like we’re going to do as good as we’ve ever done.”

By TIM VANDENACK, Standard-Examiner

Another Ogden summer staple will also be coming back on Friday after being canceled last year — the Ogden Twilight summer concert series. The series was canceled last year because of COVID-19, but returns with the first concert on Friday, featuring Fitz & the Tantrums. The show, the first of several to be held through Sept. 25, is already sold out.

Carnival rides are back at the Weber County Fair after a hiatus of several years, while the range of other activities will be on par with the 2019 installment — with the addition of exhibitors focused on outdoor activities. The 2020 fair featured the Junior Livestock Show and a handful of events, including a “truck bed” concert and an Indian relay race event, but plans for food vendors, commercial booths and exhibit areas were axed to guard against the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Carnival workers on Tuesday were assembling rides in a parking lot on the north side of the exhibition and recreation halls on the Golden Spike Event Center grounds, where the fair is held each year. That feature, proponents say, could help propel attendance over the fair’s four days past the 2019 figure of 49,000 guests. Attendance in 2020’s scaled-back installment was just shy of 5,000, according to Jennifer Graham, assistant director of cultured parks and recreation for Weber County.

“We haven’t had a carnival for a long, long time,” said Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey. The lack of open dates on traveling carnivals’ schedules had hindered efforts in prior years to lure bring a midway to Weber County, but Brass Rings Amusement from Fair Oaks, California, experienced a dip in demand due to COVID-19 and was able to fit Weber County into its itinerary.

By TIM VANDENACK, Standard-Examiner

Expectations of crowds at the Weber County Fair and Friday’s Ogden Twilight concert come as the COVID-19 case count edges back up in Weber County, like in locales around the country. But obligatory COVID-19 guidelines aren’t in effect, at least for outdoor events, according to Lori Buttars, spokesperson for the Weber-Morgan Health Department.

Even so, she advised the public to be mindful of rising numbers of COVID-19 cases, here and beyond, and the “high” COVID-19 transmission status in Weber County, as determined by the Utah Department of Health.

“Do keep in mind we are in high transmission and be sure to stay home if you’re not feeling well or you know you’ve been exposed (to the COVID-19 virus),” Buttars said. The public needs to be aware of the transmission level “and monitor our own situations.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late last month started advising that even fully vaccinated people wear masks at indoor events in areas where transmission rates are high.

Harvey said masks are recommended at the fair but not required.

A Facebook post by Ogden Twilight organizers referenced COVID-19, but didn’t spell out any COVID-19 requirements. “Masks and vaccination cards are not mandated, but we heavily encourage all guests that can be vaccinated to please do so. Our team is vaccinated,” reads the post.