NICA 1st Vice President Joe Potillo, Jr., Potillo Services, moderated a panel featuring NICA President Greg Miller, Miller & Co.; Andy Imperati, Dutchess County Fair, N.Y.; and David Sparks, Dixie Classic Fair, N.C. (VT Photo)
REPORTING FROM LAS VEGAS — Fair managers don’t gamble on honesty when it comes to collecting their dues from concessionaires. Many contracts are run on a percentage basis and sometimes the honor system isn’t enough. Fairgrounds employees and concessionaires discussed the checks and balances involved in payment at the International Association of Fairs & Expositions convention here Dec. 7-11.
Some fair managers spoke out in favor of flat fee concessions agreements because, with a flat fee, they don’t have to depend on an honest concessionaire, however, for the many fairs that do use a percentage contract, there are several ways to ensure the correct percentage is being paid, mostly.
“There’s a trust, like a family, but we also all work off the good ol’ boy cycle,” said NICA President Greg Miller of Miller & Company. “What if, by chance, I’m skimming you? What’s in place to watch out for that guy?”
Dutchess County Fair GM Andy Imperati said that he has a general idea of what concessionaires at the Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based fair should be producing. The fair forms a ‘food committee’ of staff to go out each day and monitor concessions areas, watching to see about how many patrons go through the lines per hour.
“Our reports come in every morning,” he said, adding that the fair keeps concessionaire histories on file to monitor what numbers they’ve done in the past. He also follows a common sense guide, checking that big days in attendance match up with big days for his concessionaires.
“Weather plays a big part,” said Imperati. “If we’re having a huge day and your numbers don’t match all of a sudden, we’ll have a conversation to find out what happened, if there was some sort of short staffing or equipment failure.”
Garrett McCormick, Special Events & Concession manager at State Fair of West Virginia, Lewisburg, said the fair schedules blocks of time throughout the day for each concessionaire to come in and pay and report their percentage. Each concessionaire has a two-hour block of time in which to report to a single staffer.
Facility Manager at Dixie Classic Fair David Sparks said that concessionaires at the event in Winston-Salem, N.C., have clued him in if someone is being less than honest.
“If you have a fair full of concessionaires and they’re all doing a great job to accurately report their grosses and there’s one guy who isn’t, I’ll hear about it,” Sparks said. “There’s a lot of self-policing going on.”
Taking self-policing to a new level, Carl Schlosser of Saskatoon Prairieland Park Corporation in Canada said that if he “had a concessionaire that I found was skimming, I would hook them up with a forklift and move them off the park.”
More realistically, he credited the tight-knit and communicative community of fairs with providing enough incentive to keep concessionaires honest.
“If they screw up, it’s a quick email to every other fair I know telling them about it,” he said. “It’s really not in their best interest to try to short us.”
In the long run, fair managers say it only benefits concessionaires to pay their percentage rate honestly.
“We’re there working with concessionaires and spending millions of dollars on infrastructure and entertainment because we are partners to drive more people into our facility,” said Schlosser.
Much of the income from concessionaires goes into infrastructure and improvement of the grounds to draw more people, which, in turn, leads to larger grosses for concessionaires.
“No matter how you look at this, we’re partners,” said Imperati of fair operators and concessionaires. “If you and I are not on the same page and I’m not getting my fair share, I can’t dump back into my facility what I need to make it look the way it looks.”
“I’m supposed to be getting my 18 percent, but am I? I have a handshake agreement, and I hope I’m getting my fair share,” he said.
Interviewed for this story: Andy Imperati, (845) 876-4000; Garrett McCormick, (304) 645-1090; Greg Miller, (304) 667-7422; Carl Schlosser, (306) 683-8803; David Sparks, (336) 727-2236