Guests admire vendor tents during the early afternoon Friday at the Fredonia Farm Festival.

There will not be a 56th Fredonia Farm Festival — at least for this summer.

According to the Festivals Fredonia web site, the 2024 version of the downtown event that takes place in late August has been canceled. The site does note that there are plans being made for the 2025 edition.

Concerns about the Farm Festival’s future came to light last July when Mark Mackey, then-chairman, announced he would no longer be heading a committee for the event.

Mackey, who chaired the Farm Festival for seven years, said he was tired of pushback from Fredonia officials on various issues. “I’m tired of fighting. Every year it’s been something different,” he said during a recent interview. “I spend more time than I should at these trustee meetings and I just don’t want to do it anymore.”

He continued, “Last year is when I really started to keep track of my hours and how much I’m volunteering. I put in 1,087 hours of volunteer time to the Farm Festival (in 2022). This year I’m over 750 (hours) already. People think I get paid for this, and I don’t. It’s all volunteer.”

Last year’s Farm Festival was the 55th edition. It began as a Fredonia Family Picnic in 1969 by groups and individuals who had a strong sense of what it meant to be connected to the community. Some of those founders, including the Aldrich and Fowler families as well as Richard Whipple Jr., were tied to the event for years.