Gradually Disappearing Organizations Among Modern Fairs and Festivals: Traditional County and Village Fairs

Traditional fairs represent a quite well established and colorful example in the trade culture and history of Turkey. The traditional fairs that numerically reached their highest period and flourished nationwide in the 1960s and the 1970s also left their mark on the shopping and entertainment culture of a period. However, the developments experienced in the field of retailing, the increase in the kinds of markets, the easier access to them and the changes in the entertainment culture opened a new period in front of the traditional fairs particularly as of the 1990s. Some traditional fairs turned into festivals, while some of them disappeared without leaving any mark behind in this period, which announced that the golden age of traditional fairs was over. The traditional productions, products and activities also lose significant support for them upon the disappearance of the traditional fairs. Although about two-thirds of the traditional fairs disappeared up to the present time, there are 70 traditional fairs which are set up in 62 settlements every year. Commonly called `traditional merchandise and animal fairs', these traditional fairs are organizations which still have important roles in the distribution of the goods and products produced at the local and regional levels as well as in meeting the sociocultural needs of rural localities. The temporal cycle and spatial connection features of traditional fairs necessitate addressing them on the national scale. Thus, this research aims to determine in outline the qualitative and quantitative features of the existing traditional fairs and the basic elements of the traditional fairs (visitors and traditional fair tradespeople) in Turkey. The research is based on the fieldwork as well as the questionnaire and interview applications conducted at the sample traditional fairs distributed in 13 provinces. The results, which reveal the current state of the traditional fairs and the process of transformation experienced, demonstrate that planning, strategy and management studies on the national/regional scales are required for traditional fairs.