Half Century of Progress Show

I've been wondering about the Half Century of Progress farm show in Illinois. Do they have it every year? When I search the web I only find info about previous shows; no info about this year or future dates. Can anyone tell me more about it? From what I can tell, it looks like big, good show with lots of actual demonstrations. Thanks ,Mark.

Its the BEST show I have ever been to. It is in Il. just every other year. Should be in Iowa this year. I am not a member, but should be. Vic

Every other year Mark to correspond with the modern show in Decatur il. Next show will be 2015

Thanks for the swift replies; I was suspecting the every other year thing. What is the modern show like, what is it called ? Thanks ,Mark

If I could only go to one show every two years it would be half century.It is great to see so much equipment in the feild and running.Take a set of wheels of your own or call way ahead to rent a golf cart or you will walk your legs off.We did that our first year.Someone said it is the world's largest golf cart show with a few old tractors mixed in.LOL

The Half Century Show is only held every other year (2015) at the old Chanute Air Force base in Rantoul, IL. The I&I Tractor & Engine Club of Penfield, IL. farms the ground. Not sure maybe 300-400 acres. The show year the crops have to be sprayed sometimes in order to harvest in the 3rd. week of August with the older equipment. Check out the Webb. The past shows are on CD . The Farm Progress Show is held in Decatur, IL. a few weeks later ,but the same year. That show is with all modern machinery.

If I make the next show we will have to meet up and give Jimmy a hard time.......

John T

Maybe we can get Jimmie to buy us a Pork Sandwich & a Root Beer Float.

A different viewpoint, Dad and I went three years ago when the featured pickers and combines. We were attending an auction the same weekend nearby so decided to hit both. It was worth going once since we were already there, we probably won't be back.

The good:
If you love 60's and 70's muscle tractors this is a great show. You'll probably never see as much stuff in one place as well as the unique custom 4wd stuff that comes out.

Lots of that vintage on display and they had a lot of machines in the field and you could spend two days really going through everything.

The bad:
If you like early tractors or gas engines and don't care about the later stuff as much, this show will disappoint. I think we saw one steamer (nice case 110). Early gas was VERY limited, however they had brought down from the little log cabin show an great looking E-B Big 4 30 and matching JD gang plow and an early Fairbanks Morse. However, they hid those behind a big tent where most people missed them riding around on their atvs since they were hidden out of site of the main displays. We were told hit n miss engines were either banned or very much discouraged as the only one we saw was for an ice cream stand. When they say half century, they mean it.

The show is also dangerous to be on foot. We walked the whole show and covered some stuff twice, bum knees and out of shape and all, its very doable for 70% of the attendees especially if you use the trams. They have trams running the circuit as well. However, the golf carts and ATV's make the show almost unwalkable. Despite a constant drone from the announcer to slow down, people were still flooring it up and down the runways and larger aisles and very few were paying attention to driving. Most people never even seemed to get off to walk into the displays which became the one refuge from the near constant danger of being run down. Getting to the food stands literally meant climbing over rows of golf carts parked three deep in front of the stands in the no parking areas around noon. It actually made the Portland IN show seem like it doesn't have an atv problem.

Demonstrations were also poorly announced and scheduled. There would be nothing for one or two hours, then plowing, picking and combining would all be at the same time in three different areas of the show.

conclusion
Overall, we were pretty disappointed in it since our interest is in the older stuff and not the 60's and 70's muscle. It seemed poorly organized, rules were laxly enforced if at all as far as atv's went. We saw some interesting things, but it was most definitely aimed at a very specific vintage of equipment; we didn't see any reason at all to drive three hours to it last year. If we were going to be in the area while it was going on we might spend another day there, but of the dozen or so shows we go to it ranked near the bottom overall.