Kauai County Farm Bureau wraps up fair liquidation sale at Vidinha Stadium

The grass parking lot across the soccer field at Vidinha Stadium turned into a clearinghouse for the Kauai County Farm Fair’s leftovers as the Kauai County Farm Bureau wrapped up a two-day liquidation sale on June 19 and 20. What was on offer was not novelty merch but the bones of the fair itself: plywood partitions, fencing, old ticket booths, miscellaneous lumber, electrical equipment, sinks, PVC pipe, tables and chairs.

Laurie Ho, the Farm Bureau president, made the terms plain at the sale. “No returns, no refunds,” she said, a line that fit the practical tone of a cleanup operation where buyers were getting used material and the organization was getting a chance to recoup value from infrastructure that no longer had a use at the stadium.

The sale also underscored how much of the Farm Fair’s footprint exists outside the public eye. When the crowds leave, the booths, partitions, gates and support gear still have to be stored, moved or sold, and on Kauai that means real costs in shipping, storage and disposal. For small contractors, nonprofits and community groups, the liquidation created a rare chance to pick up reusable materials at a local source before they disappeared into a landfill or a warehouse.

The Farm Bureau’s role goes beyond staging a fair once a year. Kauai Grown, the agricultural promotion program tied to local produce marketing, is administered and funded by the Kauai County Farm Bureau and the County of Kauai. That makes the organization a central part of how Kauai markets agriculture, even as the fair itself has been reshaped by changing logistics and changing venues.

Those shifts have been visible for years. In 2021, Ho said scholarship funds traditionally came largely through the Kaua‘i County Farm Bureau Fair, but the fair was not held for a second consecutive year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2024, Ho said the Kaua‘i County Farm Fair had traditionally been held in August and more recently during the three-day Admissions Day weekend, while the bureau presented a free Kaua‘i Farm Fair Tribute at Kukui Grove Center with support from Kukui Grove Center, Kaua‘i Grown, the county’s Office of Economic Development, USDA, Kaua‘i Bonsai Club, Garden Island Orchid Society, UH CTAHR and others.

The liquidation sale came as Vidinha Stadium itself was already in transition. Phase I of a $12.2 million improvement project closed the stadium from March through December 2025, with demolition and removal of the existing field, track, track implements and scoreboard, followed by plans for a synthetic turf field, synthetic track, new track implements and a video board. Just two years earlier, the Farm Bureau’s 2023 Agricultural Festival used the North Vidinha Stadium soccer fields for seed planting, fruit-and-vegetable judging, plant materials, outreach booths, horseback riding and rodeo-related activities.

Taken together, the sale and the stadium rebuild show a familiar Kauai pattern: the island reuses what it can, adapts what it must and clears space for whatever comes next.