A carnival, in the Massachusetts fair sense, is a multi-day community celebration organized around a parade, performance, and costume rather than livestock judging, a premium book, or a midway of rides. It sits outside the agricultural-society tradition that runs most of this directory's county fairs: Provincetown Carnival, for instance, is produced by the nonprofit Provincetown Business Guild rather than a chartered agricultural society, and its centerpiece is a free parade down the town's main street rather than a grandstand competition. A parade of some kind is recorded as a feature at 21 of the 98 events in this directory, but at most of those it is one program item inside a broader agricultural or cultural fair, not the reason the event exists the way it is at a carnival.
Also known as: carnival week.
