Roger Leonard of Twin Falls County Fair & Rodeo in Filer, Idaho, and Leah Perkins-Hagele of Washington County Fair Complex in Hillsboro, Ore., with Tommie Tyler of Savannah (Ga.) Exchange Club Fair Association, who moderated the discussion. (VT Photo)
REPORTING FROM LAS VEGAS — “How many of you run a 100-year-old facility that no one bothered to update until you got there?” asked Leah Perkins-Hagele of Washington County Fair Complex in Hillsboro, Ore., of the assembled group at International Association of Fairs & Expositions, here Dec.7-11. “Oh good, it’s not just me,” she remarked, as several hands went up.
Perkins-Hagele and Roger Leonard of Twin Falls County Fair & Rodeo in Filer, Idaho, shared their strategies to seed change on a small budget.
Leonard said that his staff makes significant changes on a shoestring budget by doing the majority of the work in-house. Currently, Twin Falls County Fair & Rodeo is building a 42-foot by 24-foot restroom facility with nine separate, locking washrooms complete with their own sinks, toilets and showers. Though the facility is valued at about $250,000, the organization’s total investment is only about $30,000.
“The reason we’re doing it so cheaply is because we’re doing all the work except for what the plumbers and electricians have to do by state law,” said Leonard, who added that a grant is paying $104,000 of the construction.
“We do every other kind of construction you can imagine on the fairgrounds,” he added. Leonard and his four-person team have built four VIP stands for the main arena with seats that sell for $125 minimum. The “couple hundred dollar investment” now generates enough income to pay for the video board at the rodeo.
If you’re not quite as skilled or are unable to do the work yourself, there are ways to get other people to do the work for you. Though volunteers are few and far between at both properties, Perkins-Hagele has had luck partnering with community corrections or restitutions — basically, those who have to perform court-ordered community service.
“It’s given us a great relationship with our sheriff’s department, who now call us saying that they have more guys, can they come paint buildings, spread gravel and pull more weeds?” she added.
The one program that has really made a difference in Washington County Fair’s maintenance budget bottom line is the National Guard Innovative Readiness Training program, which provides real world training for National Guard members.
“Basically they have a bunch of guys that need to train to do civil engineering and construction projects before they get deployed overseas,” she said, adding that the onerous application process took nearly five years, but usually takes about 18 months. The time commitment paid off. National Guard brought in a battalion for 12 days, complete with top-notch equipment. Not only did they grade all of the facility’s parking lots, but also re-sided the barns and completed various other maintenance projects, as well as pouring concrete. All that Perkins-Hagele needed to provide was the supplies.
“A lot of the supplies I got at cost working with local partners, who I would approach and tell that we were doing military training: ‘Do you support your troops? If you do, give us supplies,’” she explained. The venue couldn’t afford to buy the concrete needed for the IRT program to practice, instead having it donated to the Oregon National Guard by a local provider.
“The program was an absolute godsend for us and we got a ton of really positive media,” Perkins-Hagele said, adding that six months later those troops got deployed and many are still in Afghanistan doing rebuilding projects.
Leonard brings service groups on, with one particular church doing their yearly community service project the Saturday after the fair ends, bringing about 700 people.
“In three to four hours they have the entire fairgrounds clean,” he said, adding that it used to take his full staff two weeks to clean the grounds after fair time.
In order to save on equipment costs, Leonard shops the state surplus, which “has everything from Kleenex, work boots and gloves, all the way up to heavy equipment.” Last year he purchased a JLG 60-foot boom lift, valued at around $10,000, for just $3,000.
“We brought it home, gave it a complete sanding and painted it for about $600 plus labor, but it’s our labor and we had to do something during the winter anyway,” he said. Within two years the boom lift will pay for itself purely from the savings of rental fees. He also purchased Cushman Carts for about $500 that only required batteries.
Perkins-Hagele has gone battery-free, switching to more energy-efficient carts and equipment around the grounds. One of the first things she did was switch from paper towels to hand dryers, which paid for themselves in the first year with savings on paper products and labor for cleaning the bathrooms. She has since put in hands-free faucets, and timers on outdoor lights. Working with Oregon Energy Trust provided rebates for the venue’s LED lighting.
“There might be an upfront cost that seems hard to write that check for in the beginning, but it can pay for itself,” she said.
She has learned to wheel-and-deal in order to procure better pricing. A local electric vehicle dealer sold six electric golf carts at cost in exchange for year-round signage saying they sponsor the carts. Another big cost she was able to offset is internet.
In a conversation with Comcast, “I was getting prices on what it would cost me to put internet and WiFi in all these buildings and my head was spinning,” she said. “They said to me, ‘what if we put it in for free and you just put big signs out on the thoroughfare that says you’re powered by Comcast?’ Where do I sign?”
Comcast now has a five-year deal in place to trade WiFi, which customers were demanding, for sponsorship.
When you’re running an aged facility on a tight budget, it’s important to focus on the small details and large return-on-investment, with Washington County Fair focusing on weeds and paint, since labor and paint are inexpensive.
“When you don’t have a lot of money and you have an old facility, you really have to hang your hat on the little things,” Perkins-Hagele added.
Interviewed for this story: Roger Leonard, (208) 326-4396; Leah Perkins-Hagele, (503) 648-1416