The Cabarrus County Fair, with four awards, is the only North Carolina fair to win an award at the 116th Annual International Association of Fairs and Expositions Convention.

In addition, the 2006 fair received two awards in the governmental fairs division from the N.C. Association of Agricultural Fairs. The Cabarrus County Fair won the Youth Award, recognizing high participation among young people in the exhibits, competitions, contests and activities. The fair also won the Media Award for its marketing and promotion efforts.

At the International Association of Fairs and Expositions Convention, the Cabarrus County Fair competed in Division I for fairs with less than 100,000 in attendance.

In this competition, the fair won Agricultural Awards Program Best of Division for the Agribusiness and Environmental Science Field Days, which also won an award for the best Newly Established or Developed Program to Promote Agriculture.

The Agribusiness and Environmental Science Field Days brought 2,800 sixth-graders to the fairgrounds over three days to discover how agricultural products are used to produce items we use every day.

The event, coordinated by N.C. Cooperative Extension, Cabarrus Center, also highlights the importance of agribusiness to the economy by taking natural resources and converting them into wealth.

In addition, the fair won awards for Best Exhibitor Handbook and for Outstanding Newsletter-E-mail/Web.