“I think this is the way we’re going to go. “If I was getting a crowd like this on a Wednesday, I’d be ecstatic,” Hojem said as he walked through the fair. The showiness – big, bright signs and giant grills – of the food vendors at the OC Fair was also something he wanted to bring to his fair. He’d already called his fair food director back home about that idea and how the Washington State Fair could do it next year, he said. So did the $2 Taste of Fair Food promotion that food vendors offer on Fridays. Hojem’s fair does have a canned food drive on opening day, but multiple food drives over the course of the fair seemed to be an idea he could bring back home, he said. It appeared to be a success: on the Wednesday of the tour, the fairgrounds were flooded with crowds and traffic on the highway was slow for several miles leading to the fairgrounds.
#Sizewise kent wa free#
One of the programs the executives heard about was the We Care Wednesdays, where fairgoers can get free entry for bringing certain donated items. But so do other things the OC Fair is doing, he said. Unlike in Washington state, Orange County gets almost guaranteed sunshine, and that helps attendance. It brings in about 1.2 million people and has a budget of $25 million, compared to a budget of about $29 million for the OC Fair.
The state fair Hojem runs is more in line, size-wise, with the OC Fair. “This is providing a superb opportunity for young people to learn about agriculture and where their food comes from.” “The education aspect of this is absolutely awesome,” Woods said. His fairgrounds has a smaller farm area, and his state has a shorter growing season, he said. “We can’t do this variety,” Hojem said, regretfully. Kent Hojem, CEO of the Washington state fair, marveled at the wide variety of crops – herbs, peppers, lima beans, strawberries and avocados among them – growing in the Centennial Farm. We like to borrow from other fairs, or steal.” … We get our best ideas from other fairs. “We kind of drool when we come to this fair. “We’re not operating on this scale,” she said. Recent cuts in state funding for fairs forced her fair to rethink its budget. Woods’ fair brings in about 95,000 people and has a budget of about $2.2 million, about a tenth of that of the OC Fair. “If they’re waiting two hours in a line, they’re not going on a ride, they’re not buying a beer and they’re not buying a corn dog.”įairs need to be “more entrepreneurial” while also sticking to their agricultural and traditional roots, said Sandy Woods, CEO of the Nevada County fair, about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento. “It guarantees them a seat when they get here.” “What we learned over time is that many people would not like to fight the crowds,” Gaines said, explaining the decision to charge extra for the Arena and Hangar shows. The seats used to go to whoever got there first, but long lines resulted.
For a few extra dollars over the regular price of admission, fairgoers can reserve a seat. Until 2010, the fair didn’t used to charge for seats in the Hangar or the Action Sports Arena, but now it does. Musicians and performers for the Hangar come through a back gate and have 20 minutes to unload in a staging area, and another 20 minutes to pack up when they’re finished, Gaines told his tour group. Unlike other fairgoers, the executives were looking for distinct details: how is traffic managed? Where do the performers come in and unpack their props? How much seating is there in the Hangar? And how much does the fair charge for those arena seats? About 40 directors and CEOs from fairs in California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington state and elsewhere came. The association chooses one fair each year to tour, and this year the OC Fair was it. The tour was arranged by the Western Fairs Association, a trade group for fairs in western states and Canada. Gaines’ charges were a group of executives and directors from state and local fairs in the western United States who had come to Costa Mesa to see how the OC Fair operates and perhaps bring some ideas back to their own events. Attendees for the night show would be paying a few dollars more on top of their fair admission to reserve a seat in the Action Sports Arena for the Monster X Tour, Dan Gaines, director of entertainment for the fair, told his tour group. On a hot afternoon last week at the OC Fair, a backhoe shoved dirt against a row of busted-up cars, creating a ramp for the monster trucks that would fly over them in a few hours.
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