Fairfield is getting ready for this Friday and Saturday’s Fairfield Days, a free weekend festival that includes a parade, an outdoor concert, children’s’ games and events for senior citizens.

Other events planned for this year, such as a talent show, an outhouse race and 5-kilometer road walk/run have been canceled.

The two-day festival starts Friday morning with the town’s annual senior citizens appreciation day, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Fairfield Community Center on Water Street.

That event features a chicken barbecue and an afternoon of storytelling about the Allagash waterway with Tim Caverly, a former waterway supervisor and author. The event is free for Fairfield seniors, but according to Town Clerk Christine Keller, the event is at building and food capacity.

On Friday evening from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., there will be a concert in Memorial Park, followed by a guided stargazing presentation in Mill Island Park that ends at 10 p.m., hosted by John Maeder, who runs the Northern Stars Planetarium.

The events Saturday start with a pancake breakfast at the Community Center sponsored by the Fairfield Knights of Colombus, followed by at 9 a.m. by a parade from Lawrence High School to the Community Center.

Other events in the morning include a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, a pie judging contest, a “mad science” demonstration by Marbles of Motion and a magic show with the great Stephan.

Games and activities for children, including a bounce house, Wingnut the Clown, pony rides and a petting zoo, will start at 10:30 a.m. and continue until 3 p.m. There will be horse-and-wagon history tours around town through the afternoon, and the Fairfield History House at 42 High Street will be open for tours from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Some events scheduled for this year were canceled last week, though no one from the town was available to comment on why. The celebration originally included a benefit 5-kilometer run/walk, a community talent show and an outhouse race, for which three-person teams were to have built and decorated wheeled outhouses to be raced along Mill Street. Keller said the events were canceled due to lack of interest from the public to register for the events.

This is a corrected version.