Father’s Day and Fun Fare Mark Beginning of OBX Summer

Fun Fair at Nags Head Event Site. A classic carnival. Fun Fair and Father's Day mark the real beginning of Outer Banks summer.
Fun Fair at Nags Head Event Site. A classic carnival. Fun Fair and Father’s Day mark the real beginning of Outer Banks summer.
Summer Season Comes to the Outer Banks

The official start of summer on the Outer Banks is simple—Father’s Day weekend. Memorial Day may be the symbolic start of the season, but things don’t really get rolling until schools are out and families can plan on some real time together.

So—it’s Father’s Day weekend…the third weekend of June that always seems to kick things off in a big way on the Outer Banks.

We’re starting to get a nice tradition going for the week leading up to the Father’s Day.

For the past three years, Children and Youth Partnership of Dare County has sponsored the Fun Fair at the Nags Head Event Site.

The fair will be in town through Wednesday and for anyone who is going to be on the Outer Banks during that time, come on out and have some fun.

This is a good old fashioned traveling carnival, complete with rides, games and food. There are lot’s of rides for thrill seeking kids and their parents, most of them going in circles really fast. There is, however a haunted house and bumper cars.

They seem to have added a ride or two for the younger set, so everyone should have a great time.

The weather is looking really promising for the week…if anything a bit on the hot side on Monday and Tuesday. After that, if the forecast holds, sunshine and temperatures in the low to mid 80s.

The water temperatures are still at a refreshing 70-75 degrees and on those hottest days, it’s going to feel fantastic.

A quick safety reminder about swimming in the ocean. It is safe, but it is a big, powerful body of water. Be sure to go to the beach with friends and swim around a lifeguard. And if red flags are flying, do not go in the water.

Every season on the Outer Banks has something special to offer. Find that special place to stay at Joe Lamb Jr., & Associates.

2nd Annual Fun Fair a Great Time for Families

Every carnival has to have one--the Ferris Wheel at the 2nd Annual Fun Fair.
Every carnival has to have one–the Ferris Wheel at the 2nd Annual Fun Fair.

Sometimes there are so many things happening on the Outer Banks that we don’t quite get to mention everything until the event is past.

We’ll rack up the 2nd Annual Soundside Fun Fair to that explanation.

Fun Fair sounds great, but Carnival is what it really is.

A Great Time by Roanoke Sound

By no means is this a huge event, but the fun factor is off the charts with some great rides, fried dough, funnel cakes, arcade games…in short, everything expected in a traveling carnival.

And Outer Banks visitors and local families responded. Held Thursday through Thursday through Friday at the Nags Head Event Site, it was packed every night and every day.

Especially at night, with a breeze coming off Roanoke Sound, and the lights and sounds of rides and children laughing, it was magic. A step back in time perhaps, when the actual event eclipsed any vicarious experience.

Rides and Food

Favorite ride? That’s a tough one. The lines were long at the Fireball where cars drop along a circular track, faster and faster until everything goes all the way around the circle.

Then there was the Scooter—bumper cars. It doesn’t matter that they have probably been around for 60 or 70 years at least. Adults, kids, anyone driving them is smiling an laughing the whole time they are bumping into cars and being bumped into.

There were also the arcade games—and these are all of the classics. Trying to put a basketball through a very non regulation hoop; squirting water into the mouth of a clown figure to see who gets to the top first.

The funnel cakes, fresh out of the fryer—amazing. There was also a red velvet funnel cake, but the consensus was, go for the original.

The Soundside Fun Fair is a major fundraising event for Children & Youth Partnership for Dare County (CYP)—a local nonprofit that has worked wonders in reaching out to families with children.

Given how important the CYP mission is and the success of the fair, we’re certain it will be back next year.