The Bedford County Fair Lost Its Old Home. Main Street Is Asking the Same Question.

Walk Main Street in Bedford this month and you'll likely pass a storefront window with a hand-lettered sticky note still taped inside the glass, left over from a walking tour that asked passersby what they'd like to see behind that particular pane. A few doors down, a flyer for the Bedford Family Carnival lists ride hours at Liberty Lake Park for the weekend of August 21 through 23. Neither the sticky note nor the flyer would have looked out of place in Bedford five years ago. What's different this year is that both are pointing at the same underlying question: what does a town do when it no longer controls a piece of ground the way it used to.

The fairgrounds problem nobody planned for

When the fair returned in August 2024 after a pandemic-era pause, it set up on county-owned land off Falling Creek Road, wedged between the Bedford County Sheriff's Office and the Bedford Regional Water Authority headquarters. That comeback lasted one year. The land is no longer available, because the county is building a new social services department on the same site.

Rather than fold, the fair board traded one big weekend for something more scattered. The News & Advance quoted fair superintendent Joy Powers explaining the shift:

"This is about continuing a tradition that means so much to Bedford families and businesses. With the Town's support, we're able to grow in new directions while staying true to who we are."

A tradition with more than one address now

Last year that meant a Friday-through-Sunday midway at Liberty Lake Park, a livestock and horse show at Allen's Mountain Livestock, and an agriculture expo folded into Centerfest in downtown Bedford weeks later. This year's fair keeps the Liberty Lake address for its headline weekend, August 21 through 23, according to the 2026 statewide fair schedule. Whether the satellite events return in the same shape this fall is still an open question, so the countywide fair's format for a second season remains unsettled.

For a fair that had one address for most people's memory of it, that's not a small adjustment. It's the same kind of question Bedford's downtown is asking about its own buildings, just on a different scale.

Main Street's version of the same question

In late May 2026, the Town of Bedford held a Downtown Bedford Community Walking Visioning Tour, inviting residents and business owners to walk six vacant storefronts and post sticky notes with ideas for what should go in them. It's part of the town's Downtown Action Strategy, run in partnership with the Commonwealth Regional Council, the Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, and Virginia Main Street, according to WSLS's coverage of the tour.

WFXR quoted Bedford's director of planning and community development, Mary Zirkle, saying: "Downtown is one of our largest employment centers. It also is the cultural center of the town. When people think of Bedford, they think of Downtown Bedford." The same report quoted consultant Joe Borgstrom of Place + Main Advisors saying his firm wants to "recapture the money that's already leaving the community" and keep it circulating downtown instead.

The wish lists that came out of the walk ranged from practical to specific. Residents suggested bakeries, bookstores, an ice cream parlor, a coffee shop with a play area for kids, and, more than once, an upscale restaurant. WSET quoted Bedford resident Kaylin Bradley saying: "I personally would love to see some upscale restaurants. One or two maybe, a nice steakhouse, something really nice." WDBJ quoted another resident, Tiffany Banner: "There seems to be a lot of young families coming in and multi-generations that can benefit from a thriving downtown."

None of this is hypothetical for the businesses already there. Patti Wilkerson, who owns Frederic's Flowers, told WSET in February 2026 that she'd watched three shops close within the previous year, and that empty storefronts slow foot traffic for everyone nearby. Bridge Street Cafe felt it too. WSET quoted Bridge Street Cafe employee Eden Chaffin saying: "When the bank closed, we lost regulars from that and just stuff like that, regulars from businesses that had to shut down."

The town isn't only asking nicely. Bedford Town Council adopted an ordinance in May 2026 requiring registration of vacant buildings within the downtown district, a step toward tracking, and eventually pressuring, owners who let storefronts sit empty rather than lease them, per reporting from the Bedford Bulletin. As of the May walking tour, town leaders had identified five to six properties whose owners were willing to participate in whatever comes next.

What's already carrying downtown while the vacancies get sorted

The empty windows are real, but they're not the whole street. Main Street and its immediate blocks still run on a working roster of local spots: Bridge Street Cafe, Town Kitchen & Provisions, Soul Sisters & Brother Kitchen, Olde Liberty Station, Bella, and Clam Digger's Pub & Eatery all show up on locals' short lists for lunch or dinner downtown. Beale's hosts a recurring music bingo night that draws a regular crowd. The Bedford Museum & Genealogical Library's Summer Speaker Series recently brought in John Messier, president and CEO of Southern Flavoring, to talk about the company's 100th anniversary, a reminder that some Bedford businesses have outlasted several generations of Main Street's ups and downs.

Then there's the farmers market, which has nothing to do with vacancy and everything to do with why people already show up downtown on a Saturday morning. The Bedford VA Farmers Market runs Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon, May 2 through September 26 this year, set up under the Centertown pavilion in the historic downtown core. It doesn't solve the storefront problem, but it's proof the foot traffic Borgstrom is chasing already exists on at least one morning a week. The question the town is wrestling with is how to hold onto that energy the other six days.

How to actually spend a Saturday here this month

If you're already living the Bedford calendar rather than reading about it from a distance, here's what that looks like on the ground through the end of August:

• Saturday mornings, 8 a.m. to noon: the farmers market under the Centertown pavilion, running through September 26
• The weekend of August 21 through 23: the Bedford Family Carnival at Liberty Lake Park, with midway rides and food vendors
• One evening a week: music bingo at Beale's downtown
• Periodically: a Summer Speaker Series talk at the Bedford Museum & Genealogical Library, like the recent session marking Southern Flavoring's 100th anniversary
• Any afternoon: a walk past the vacant storefronts on Main Street, some of which still carry sticky notes from May's visioning tour, worth reading if you want a sense of what your neighbors are hoping shows up next

The through-line

The fair and Main Street aren't the same story, but they're the same kind of story. Both involve a piece of Bedford that used to run on habit, a fairgrounds everyone assumed would always be there, storefronts everyone assumed would always have a tenant, suddenly requiring an actual decision instead. The county made its call on Falling Creek Road for practical reasons tied to services the county needs. Downtown's answer is still being written, one sticky note and one town council vote at a time. Either way, 2026 is turning out to be the year Bedford stopped assuming and started deciding what its shared spaces are actually for.

If you're watching this downtown story unfold because you already call Bedford home, or because you're weighing whether this is the kind of town where you'd want to put down roots, Lisa Santacaterina has spent years tracking exactly this kind of on-the-ground change across Bedford and the surrounding counties. Reach out to talk through what a season like this one actually means for the neighborhoods you're watching, or to schedule a consultation whenever you're ready.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.