An overview of the Arizona State Fair. (Photo by Jilian Danielson)
It’s pretty unusual for Phoenix, Ariz., to get five days of rain, and Arizona State Fair officials are still touting a successful event despite the wet weather.
“The reality is that we were down less than four percent and, with five days of rain, that’s great,” said Kristi Walsh, assistant executive director of the fair. “The good news is that it brought the temperatures down.”
The fair ran from Oct. 16 to Nov. 8, Wednesdays through Sundays. This year’s attendance was 1,102,044 compared to 1,147,182 in 2014, Walsh said.
Gross sales for the fair have yet to be calculated, and Walsh said they usually don’t release those numbers anyway.
Admission was $10 for adults, $5 for kids and senior citizens, and the fair offered discounts each day.
One promotion that helped bring ticket prices down was through a partnership with Sanderson Ford, where the car dealership hosted We Care Wednesdays, benefiting St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, Walsh said.
“We’re one of their top donation events of the year. We love it, it’s a great way to give back to the community,” she said
Basically, the car dealership asked fairgoers to bring four or more canned food items in exchange for free admission until 6 p.m. on Wednesdays.
Aside from Sanderson Ford, the fair had several other sponsors, including Fry’s Food Stores that sponsored free fries on Fridays, Arizona milk producers that sponsored the fair’s milk farm and Sears Vacations.
Coca-Cola was the official beverage sponsor, Walsh said.
Food vendors seemed to do well despite the weather, said Linda Pope who runs four food concessions at the fair each year. She and her husband have worked at the fair every year since 1999, and she said the weather was just bizarre for Arizona.
“It was very, very unusual that we would get rain during the Arizona State Fair. It was still a success. The people came back on the last two weekends,” Pope said.
Pope’s specialty item was her deep fried coffee.
“It’s really fun to hear the reactions. I make a special mix with coffee, and I make a special dough,” she said.
Pope freezes coffee, wraps the frozen coffee with dough, freezes the entire treat, and fries it as it’s ordered.
Despite the dip in attendance, she said, “Our Sunday’s were super, super strong.”
The last Sunday of the fair saw record visitors, logging 113,196 in attendance — the highest figure since 2004, Walsh said.
“It was huge,” she added.
Parking went fairly smoothly, Walsh said, noting that she doesn’t have the final number of cars parked yet.
“We had our full-priced lot, and our half-priced lot was really popular with our price conscious customers,” she said.
A big draw this year was the talent lineup, which included Sheryl Crow, Bret Michaels, Meat Loaf, Rick Springfield, Gary Allan, Austin Mahone, Jack and Jack, Jackson Brown, Jane’s Addiction, Third Day, Aaron Lewis with William Elliot Whitmore, Hanson with Nelson, and Old School, to name a few.
“The concerts were very strong this year. Jackson Brown was really huge. I don’t think he tours a lot, so it was great to have him at the fair,” Walsh said.
Walsh declined to say how much the fair spent on talent, highlighting only that it was a great pool of talent they were able to book.
The Arizona State Fair doesn’t have a theme each year like other fairs, but this year they did have a tagline stating “Share Something AmAZing.”
“It was really gearing folks toward using social media and our mobile app,” Walsh said.
The Arizona State Fair launched a mobile app in 2014, and saw an increase in its popularity this year, she noted.
Interviewed for this story: Kristi Walsh, (620) 842-8600; Linda Pope, (928) 925-6891.