When the New York State Fair announced a Chevy Court act for the Sunday night prior to Labor Day–considered a marquee show each year–it was a departure from tradition. The performer on that night, often one of the Fair’s best-attended, will be a young man who calls his act “A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie,” not exactly your mainstream major star. For many years the Stan Colella Stage was more likely to spotlight da cowboy in da Stetson, da rocker in da ripped jeans or even da crooner wid a pearl necklace than da rapper in da hoodie. 
This booking joins a long list of conversions that are remaking the Fair, squeezing out some of the old traditions to bring our beloved annual festival into the high-tech new millennium.
There’s no denying that the Fair is keeping one foot in the past, characterized by exhibits centered around thriving agriculture, the outdoor spirit of the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks and Empire State history from Haudenosaunee homeland to the Erie Canal to interstates and skyscrapers.
But beyond recent Fairgrounds infrastructure updates that paved over the venerable track of the Syracuse Mile to make way for the muscular posts of the Broadway Skyliner, the Fair has experienced an attitude adjustment, taking on a glitzier, 21st century personality. Makeovers are really nothing new, as the Fair’s Grange-Building history exhibit documents the fact that changes have remade the Fair in many ways over its 177-year run.
Some longtime Fair aficionados actually miss the character of the aging wooden food stands that lined the trackside fence or the dilapidated grandstand that served for decades as the Fair’s main concert venue. 
Campers inhabiting the new, neatly- manicured RV village may fondly recall waking up in the massive, but rustic infield after a night spent hearing echoes of music from the big stage or the roar of motorsports kicking up dirt-track dust.
Those nostalgia buffs are balanced by patrons who have long complained that the Fair changes too little from year to year. That group has embraced the new day dawning in Geddes where admission tickets are now computer-scanned at gates. To them, it’s progress seeing trams towed by state-of-the-art pick-up trucks instead of belching tractors and they love receiving cell phone text alerts when a calf arrives in the cow-birthing tent.
Clearly, which change to consider an improvement is a matter of perspective, though some updates–the reborn main gate for instance–likely have universal approval. Regardless of how you view the dichotomy of today’s Fair, there is a symmetry as most of the action takes place between the retro-style main buildings and colonnade at the eastern end and the shiny new Exposition Center at the western.
Likewise, while young hip-hoppers have found space in the Chevy Court line-up, there’s still plenty of room for the classic performers who carry Medicare cards. And it’s all magic to the generation of kids who will someday look back at State Fair 2018 as a great childhood memory.
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