The Iowa Craft Beer Tent will host a festival that brings elements of the Iowa State Fair together for one weekend in August. 

The Butter Cow Festival, scheduled for Friday, Aug. 14, and Saturday, Aug. 15, will feature local breweries, local State Fair food vendors and local bands on what would have been the first weekend of this year’s Iowa State Fair. The fair was canceled because of concerns about the continuing spread of the coronavirus pandemic and fears over the ability to follow social distancing guidelines and keep fairgoers safe.

With the cancellation of the fair and with other entertainment and recreation opportunities shut down because of the pandemic, event organizer Scott Carlson said the Butter Cow Festival is designed to give people a chance to enjoy fair food and live music, while maintaining social distancing. It also provides an opportunity for the vendors and musicians to generate some income that they otherwise would lose, he said.

“For some of these folks the fair is their only economic engine, so we kind of sat down and said, ‘Hey, what can we do … to at least help that local Central Iowa community?’ ” Carlson said. “So we started to think about how do we make an event that would be socially distant but also engage the community?”

He said organizers thought about all the people, from vendors and musicians to sound engineers and security staff, who have been out of work over the past several months and would continue to lose money with the State Fair being canceled.

The next challenge was a location to pull it off, Carlson said.

The Lauridsen Amphitheater at Water Works Park  turned out to be the perfect place that would allow organizers to accomplish what they wanted.

Carlson said organizers tapped into their high school geometry skills to figure out how to create a safe, socially distant environment for festival attendees.

The result was 700 15-by-15-foot squares, each with enough space for up to eight people.

“We went out there with tons of red flags and ropes and wheels that measure space, and brought chairs out and considered what size would be a good size for people to congregate but also have a good distance between them,” Carlson said. 

There will also be 15-foot avenues between every fourth or fifth square to give people space to get to vendors or portable restrooms without getting too close to one another, he said.

“We were able to make the math work, keep people safe, hire some local bands, do some really cool things … and just do something that the community can enjoy this summer,” he said.

Attendees will be required to wear a mask to enter the festival, but will be allowed to take it off when they are in their square. Staff and volunteers also will be wearing masks, Carlson said. The festival will also be following Center for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to keep people safe.

Vendors will be spaced, as will the portable bathrooms, he said.

“We’re just trying to think of all the ways to keep the public comfortable and safe with what’s happening,” Carlson said.

With a plan in hand, the festival was pitched to Water Works Park, the Greater Des Moines Partnership and Catch Des Moines, and with their support, the festival was born, Carlson said.

He said the Butter Cow Festival will be a one-time-only event, and if it’s held in the future, it would change so as to not compete with the fair. He didn’t discount holding a similar event earlier in the year, but insisted it would not be held during the fair.

“We’re not trying to compete with the fair, or take anything away from the fair; we don’t want to draw people away from the fair,” Carlson said. “We definitely love the fair, and we don’t ever want to compete with the fair. It’s pretty sacred.”

Tickets range from $75 to $250 per square, based on the location. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Des Moines Water Works Park Foundation and the State Fair Blue Ribbon Foundation. The event will run from 4:30 to 11 p.m. both days. 

With the festival carrying the name of the iconic State Fair attraction, the question must be asked, will it feature a butter cow?

“We are trying,” Carlson said. “We are reaching out, we don’t know, but we might have something up our sleeve.”

For more information, see Iowa Craft Beer Tent’s Facebook page.