Last Tuesday was the opening night for this year’s Heart Of Illinois Fair. It was also the first night for the week-long local talent show and competition: HGT.
I was honored to be asked to be a judge for the show, so let’s head over to Expo Gardens and prepare to get all judgmental. And yes, I put the “mental” back in judgmental!
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Expo Gardens
Here we are at Expo Gardens, the home of the Heart of Illinois Fair! This looks a lot better at night when that rotten sun goes down, so I’ll take a picture on my way out and show you.
The first stop at the fair is always…
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The Beer Garden
I went back to the beer area and Jessica served me up an ice-cold can of Miller Lite. She’s looking very pretty behind the bar and she had just fixed her hair up this photo opportunity!
I ran into Matt who I met over five years ago at Hangovers. Time flies when you’re drinking beer! It was great to see him and just after I snapped this photo I was told I needed to get to the judges table, so I didn’t get the name of his female friend, but it was wonderful to meet her!
Now it’s off to the judge’s table!
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HGT (HOI Got Talent)
There’s the impressive stage and Roxy Baker, who’s on the board of directors for the fair is the host of this local talent competition. Roxy is the co-host of the Rik & Roxy Morning Show on WWCT and you can read more about that by clicking here. You should also check out Roxy’s Retro page.
Here’s the other judges on the panel, Andy Corbin, who’s also a broadcaster at WWCT, Robbie Mathieson, who’s an owner at Pour Bros. Taproom and Kindall Rueschel Nelson who runs the Peoria Music Live website and facecrack page.
It was great to meet them!
There was a nice crowd that showed up for this first night’s talent competition.
Roxy did a great job of hosting the competition and there were ten super-talented acts that we graded.
It was such a fun show and before you knew it, we had tallied up our scores and Roxy announced the first night’s winners.
There they are from left to right: Yayo and Asia Neva, who tied for third place; Helaina Kahlman, was the second place winner and Victoria Allen was the first place winner.
Below the first photo are photos of them performing at the show. Tonight is the last night for the competition and on Friday all the winners will compete for the ultimate first, second and third place prizes. You can read all bout it by clicking here.
Thanks to everyone who performed, it was a fantastic show and congratulations to the winners! Good luck on Friday night!
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Food
One of my stops at the fair is always the Jumbo Corn Dog stand. You have to get a corn dog at the fair, it’s just the rules!
Cheese Nuts Pizza brought their unique wood-burning traveling pizza oven to the fair this year.
Chastity was working the front of the tent and that’s her son with owner Kyle cooking up pizzas. Kyle said business was great and there’’s one of their pizza pies, fresh out of the oven!
It looks fabulous and they’re going to be at the fair all week, so stop by, say hi and get a pie!
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Greg
I ran into my nephew Greg while roaming around and it was great to see him and catch up! I love his tie-dye Bob Marley shirt! Very cool and it was so nice to see him!
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The Midway
I always love strolling through the Midway at the fair.
There’s lit up rides, games and food, who could ask for anything more?
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The Wine and Beer Shed
There’s wine tasting and Illinois-brewed beer to be sampled in here. Check out the souvenir glasses, nice!
There’s beer on one side and wine on the other. The wine looks nice, but I’m more of a beer guy, so let’s step over to that foamy side of the aisle.
Amanda and Heather were working the beer side and it’s sponsored by the Peoria Jaycees.
All the beer is brewed in Illinois and I tried the Blind Pig, which is brewed in Champaign, Illinois. It was delicious and loaded with alcohol, which I always love in a beer!
The night ended with a spectacular fireworks display!
I told you it looked better at night!
Thanks to everyone at the Heart of Illinois Fair for all the work you do to have some unique summer entertainment and fun here in Peoria!
There’s live music every night, two more evenings of the HGT competition, rides, food, wine, stage shows, the Beer Garden and tonight at 9PM, Elvis makes an appearance, via Dave Stovall!
The Fair runs through Saturday night, so stop out and help support this long-running Peoria tradition!
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1601 W. Northmoor Road
Peoria
309-691-8332
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Related Post: The Heart Of Illinois Fair, 2021: The Pre-Party.