FAIRFIELD – Saturday, March 2 was a picture-perfect day for the Kenny Norton Southeast Iowa Farm Show, as residents got to see farm implements up close and personal outside the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center.

Inside the arts center, attendees perused the 40 booths representing local businesses and organizations involved in agriculture. The Jefferson County Cattlemen served lunch, and the fun continued into the evening with a sell-out crowd at Aaron Tippin’s country music concert in the arts center’s theater.

Fairfield Arts & Convention Center Executive Director Lindsay Bauer said it was a great day and a great farm show. This year’s show attracted about 800 visitors and 11 new vendors. Bauer said she thinks the warm weather helped to boost attendance.

“If it’s cold and nasty, nobody wants to leave the house,” Bauer said. “This year’s outdoor display was particularly good. I loved the equipment, and we also had a clothing boutique trailer. There were many different things to do.”

This was the ninth Kenny Norton Southeast Iowa Farm Show the arts center has hosted. It would have been the tenth, but the arts center had to cancel the show in 2021 because of the pandemic.

The arts center has plenty more live entertainment planned for the coming weeks. It will host an Oscars viewing party starting at 6 p.m. Sunday, March 10, and after that the next show in its artist series is Drum Tao at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 14. Bauer said that show is poised to sell out, and that three-quarters of the seats had already been sold as of Tuesday.

“We’re having a record-breaking season,” Bauer said about ticket sales for the 2023-24 artist series. “Every show this season has exceeded our attendance goals, and five of our past 11 performances have been sold-out. That’s awesome.”

The arts center will host the Women’s Professional Billiard Association’s Fairfield Invitation from March 21-24. On April 3, the center will host Step Afrika! at 7:30 p.m. Bauer said it is being performed by the first company in the world dedicated to the All-American artform of step dancing.

Looking further into the future, the arts center will once again host a series of outdoor summer concerts just like it has every year since 2021. Bauer said she’s finalizing the contracts with performers now so couldn’t release the names, but did say that there will be four concerts every other Thursday at 7:30 p.m. from June 27 through Aug. 8. She said two of the artists are based in Fairfield, and the other two are from elsewhere in Iowa.

“We really like this series because it has a vacation feel,” Bauer said. “7:30 p.m. is still early enough for young families to come out, but it’s late enough that you have time to get dinner, which we encourage people to do at our downtown restaurants.”

Lastly, the arts center is planning to hold its annual summer theater camp for children the week of July 15-19, and registration for that will begin soon.