Headliners include Vanilla Ice, Darci Lynne at Porter, Lake, LaPorte fairs
Farmer will perform at 7:30 p.m. July 18 at the Porter County Fair in Valparaiso.
She won NBC’s “Americas Got Talent” at age 12 by the most votes for a final performance in the history of the show. She has been featured on NBC’s “Little Big Shots,” Food Network’s “Kids Baking Championship,” “Ellen” and “Today. “
She hosted her own TV special, “Darci Lynne: My Hometown Christmas” on NBC. She made her stage debut at the Grand Ole Opry. She even partnered with Mattel as a Role Model for Barbie’s “Be Anything Tour” in celebration of Barbie’s 60th Anniversary.
Her life has been a whirlwind since winning “America’s Got Talent,” Farmer said.
“I’ve gotten so many opportunities from winning AGT and I’m so thankful for everything I’ve gotten to do this year. It’s been a roller coaster. It’s been a really fun roller coaster.”
In January 2019, she was invited back to perform on a special edition called “America’s Got Talent: Champions.” Winners and finalists from all over the globe were invited on to compete again. She was the runner-up to magician Shin Lim, the 2018 “America’s Got Talent” winner.
“That was really exciting,” she said. “I looked at it like ‘The Hunger Games,’ where all the winners came back and fought to the death.”
She’s spending the summer touring. This time out, she’s got a live band rather than backing tracks, “and it sounds amazing,” she said.
Farmer just finished eighth grade in a public school in her native Oklahoma, although this fall she’s going to give homeschooling a try thanks to her demanding schedule.
She will perform some of the songs she did on “America’s Got Talent” but she also has a lot of new material to perform, she said. Her puppet friends will be with her, including the diva rabbit Petunia, shy mouse Oscar and the sarcastic old lady Edna.
Performing at summer fairs puts her in a whole new environment, literally.
“I honestly think outside venues are really fun,” she said. “I definitely love going to the fairs and performing outside. It is a challenge sometimes — one time at a show it rained the whole time so that was not fun. The weather’s very unpredictable. But most of the time it’s beautiful outside in the summer.”
Audiences will be treated to a well-rounded, family-friendly show, she said.
“Bring your whole family,” she said. “You’ll definitely hear some great music. You’ll laugh a lot. It’s just a good night to bring your family and come out and have fun together. It’s just a fun show.”
County fairs are quintessential summertime fun. They feature grand carnival rides and games, food galore, 4-H kids showing their projects, demolition derbies, tractor pulls and headlining acts like Darci Lynne.
Here is a rundown of Northwest Indiana’s county fairs.
LaPorte County Fair
Vanilla Ice, Hunter Hays and Chris Lane headline the entertainment at the 174th annual LaPorte County Fair; along with demolition derbies, a truck and tractor pull and a rodeo.
Other fan-favorite entertainment acts include the Royal Hanneford Circus with multiple performances daily, Bear Hollow Wood Carvers with shows at 4 and 8 p.m. July 8-11 and Silly Safaris with shows at 3, 5 and 7 p.m. July 12-13.
There will also be live music daily in the entertainment tent, 4-H competitions and judging daily, a carnival with unlimited ride specials and a daily antique tractor parade.
Porter County Fair
Darci Lynne, Luke Combs, Newsboys and Sawyer Brown with Diamond Rio are the musical headliners at this year’s fair; with bull riding, drag racing, truck and tractor pull, truck challenge, figure eight school bus derby and a demolition derby filling out the rest of the grandstand lineup.
Other entertainment at the Porter County Fair include a carnival, appearances by Max Power the 9-foot Robot, Kid’s Bucks game show, Dynamo Dogs dog trick show, Bears of Bearadise Ranch bear show, the Ninja Experience ninja show and “Granpa Cratchet” novelty truck. There is also Chase’s Racing Pigs show and the Pirates of the Colombian Caribbean performance in the free entertainment area.
Over in the Park Place Pavilion, you will find live entertainment daily from bands and groups like the Good Time Cloggers, Great Lake Sound Chorus and the Valparaiso University Community Band; as well as the Silly Safari animal show and the County Line Orchard doughnut eating contest..
And what’s a county fair without 4-H? Look for competitions like the rabbit show, dog agility show, barbecue competition, swine show, horse and pony English, poultry show, rooster crowing and miniature equine show — to name a few.
Lake County Fair
Each day at the Lake County Fair, the Farm Bureau celebrates 100 years in the Flower Show Building.
On Aug. 7, look for a special visit from Jerry Ross, retired United States Air Force officer and a former NASA astronaut, at the Purdue Federal Credit Union exhibit north of the 4-H Building. Ross is a veteran of seven space shuttle missions, making him the joint record holder for most spaceflights. Time to be announced.
Contests include a paper airplane making contest, a pie eating contest, an apple peeling contest, frog jump contest, goat milking contest, bean spitting and a fair food eating contest.
There will also be several craft demonstrations during the fair in things like wood carving, sewing, scrapbooking, canning and quilting.
Daily live entertainment comes in the form of Silly Safaris animal shows, Show Me Swine Racers racing pig shows, children’s story time and live music daily on the Heritage Stage.
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