Opening day of the great New York State Fair is Aug. 27, so today State Fair Hound kicks off daily posts leading up to that glorious day. We’ll begin with a topic that’s been in the news quite a bit.

The first concert at the not-yet-completed amphitheater is scheduled to take place during this year’s State Fair. Officials still have to figure out how to work around the problems handed them by the short-sighted politicians who chose the lakefront site. Just how do you get 17,000 concert patrons from the new shell to the Fairgrounds and vice versa? It’s a daunting and very likely an impossible walk, so buses will be the first line of service.

Ideally, a monorail that can zip passengers around from parking lots to venues is in the future, but the expense is insurmountable, at least currently. State Fair Hound is looking into sponsoring teleporting, as in sci-fi movies and TV shows, but so far we haven’t found a way for that either.

One bit of good news revealed to us recently by Mr. Waffner is that a ticket to a show at the new stadium is good for Fair admission any day, not just the day of the show. So if you go to a concert on one day, you can use your free ticket to attend the Fair on another day. That part of the plan makes sense.

You could consider the just-completed Syracuse Nationals weekend a dry run for the New York State Fair. Just like our Fair, they get a massive crowd wandering the entire grounds. They have to deal with traffic, parking, food vendors, rest room use, security and entertainment stages. This year also brought hot weather and the potential for health-and-comfort-related problems, something Fair visitors know very well.

From here on out, it’s primarily various livestock events as the final push comes to prepare the Expo Center for the onslaught of Fair aficionados. Beginning on July 27, one month from opening day, State Fair Hound be posting daily with Fair news, ideas, photos and tips to prepare you for the Big Event.

We’ll continue publishing new stories and exclusive photos galore every day through the Fair. We hope you’re excited to be the most important part of the Fair. We promise a wild ride.

State Fair Hound urges you to consider how different our Fair will look after this year, with the Grandstand demolished. Here we see the roof and upper seats looming over the grounds.

No decisions have been made on the fate of the dirt track, but future events won’t have the hulking stadium.

More thought on the future of that area later.

We now know which performers will close out the Grandstand concert series. The Fair has announced that comedian Jim Gaffigan will appear on Aug. 28, followed on Aug. 30 by country musician Hank Williams Jr. and by soulful chanteuse Patti LaBelle on Sep. 3. The stage will then be dismantled to make way for a couple of motorsports events to tear up the track on Sunday, Sep. 6.

Prices, all including an excessive $3.75 per ticket fee to make etix richer, are $18.75 and $23.75 per seat. If you buy with a credit card, you will pay even more.

Many country music fans will be happy to see Williams return, as the man behind the shades is a multi-talented entertainer who always brings a hot band and a truckload of famous songs, some penned by his legendary daddy. Unfortunately, Junior is also a loudmouthed lunkhead prone to offensive and brainless comments that approach Ted Nugent territory. We can hope he tones it down up here in Yankee country, but we won’t stop holding our breath until his show concludes without him making some outrageous comment that would cause embarrassment and reflect poorly on the Fair.

The timing of the announcement that Williams will return, coming just as people in South Carolina and around the nation have finally admitted the disturbing truth about the confederate flag, is intriguing to say the least. Vendors at our own New York State Fair have agreed to refrain from selling that infamous banner, often has used by Hank Jr. as a stage prop over the years. Worse yet, he has championed the appalling, arrogant rhetoric that made it a redneck icon.

You can bet your State Fair Hound will be on hand when Hank Jr. plays the final country concert at the old Grandstand and we’ll let you know how it works out. But we can’t help but consider the irony that the Joe LaGuardia stage’s first concert–long before it bore that name–was Williams’ opposite, Charley Pride, in 1976. Not only are they opposites in terms of race, but there’s so much more. Pride, who still performs but wasn’t available for this show, is beloved by fans around the world for his class and graciousness. We could use some of that for this landmark event.