Things seem to be upside down in the fair industry, as are these riders at the South Florida Fair, West Palm Beach, Fla.
More than 44 million people attended the Top 50 Fairs in North America, but that’s not the story.
The majority of those fairs (26) saw an increase in attendance, while 20 reported attendance was down and four held the line. But that’s not the story.
The story is that the industry is changing. Like all businesses today, a new generation is taking the helm as the Baby Boomers retire. The challenge is to educate those newbies.
Steve Chambers, executive director of Western Fairs Association, has seen a huge change in fair management, based on WFA membership. “Every sector of business is seeing that,” Chambers said.
“But fairs are such an unusual career. There is no degree in fair management.”
WFA projects that in 2016 more than 60 percent of its fair CEOs and general managers will have less than two years of fair management, Chambers said. And most of them aren’t moving up the ranks, they are coming from the event side of business, or the Chamber of Commerce. For every Sarah Cummings, a veteran fair manager who just took the helm at Colorado State Fair, Pueblo, there is a new vacancy at smaller fair. Who will they find?
Of the last seven new California fair CEO’s WFA brought to Sacramento, five were brand new faces, Chambers said. And they are not coming out of the agriculture community.
The good news is they bring fresh ideas to the industry. The bad news is service members who serve fairs are ensconced in a historically relationship-driven business. They are only in town 5-10 days a year. But each time they are coming home. Then the neighborhood changes.
Chambers said at the January WFA convention in Anaheim, Calif., they are going to honor second-generation members. “We had a silver pendant made that says Two-Plus. He was inspired by the current WFA president, Troy Bowers, Amador County Fair, Plymouth, Calif., whose father was president of WFA 50 years ago.
Retiring of Baby Boomers is a national generational trend, agreed Marla Calico, incoming president and CEO of the International Association of Fairs & Expositions.
She’s facing it at IAFE headquarters, as Jim Tucker and Max Willis, longtime association leadership, both retire this month. She has brought on Lori Hart, who has a fair background with the Kansas State Fair, Hutchinson, to help guide IAFE’s education outreach.
Calico agrees educating the new generation of fair managers is what the business needs today. She has been helming IAFE’s Institute of Fair Management, which drives participation in various fair conferences. The reason is simple — networking and relationships are the key to the sports, entertainment and fairs business.
Oftentimes, new managers don’t realize they are in the venue business, concerned with operations and infrastructure on acres of land as much as they are with marketing and finance.
Add to that that 80 percent of fair management for events that draw less than 100,000 is comprised of volunteers.
Calico attended the Iowa fairs meeting this month and said she saw a much younger presence overall. Because volunteers at fairs are passionate about those fairs, some tend not to want to let go well into their 70s. But it’s happening, and IAFE and WFA are working hard to facilitate the conversation. Fairs need to be representative of their communities, and the demographics are changing.
FAIR FUNDING
The other big issue facing fairs is funding, Chambers continued. California fairs and those in Oregon, Washington and Arizona, have been through the drought. This fiscal year, for the first time since California’s state government eliminated fair funding in 2011, there is $10 million on the table. It’s not the $32 million they once received, but it’s a start.
As it turned out, fairs didn’t struggle these past four years as much as Chambers would have predicted. He thought some would fade away without state support, but none did. Instead, they learned to raise their own funds. “Fairs have always been a place where others do fundraising, like clubs and community groups,” Chamber said. “But in 2011 fairs started fundraising for themselves with significant success.”
He cited the Tulelake (Calif.) Butte County Fair, which has always been a free fair. Without state support, they decided to ask people to donate at the front gate. It was totally voluntary.
“They raised $32,000 the first year just by putting out buckets,” Chambers said.
While small fairs did not struggle as much because of the down economy, bigger operations did take a hit in terms of year-round business, he added. Consumer and commercial business suffered.
One of the lessons learned from a consultant to WFA who helped them lobby for a return of fair funding was to refer to fairs as “fairgrounds.” They are venues. They impact the community year round. They are disaster shelters, host community events, even house schools. Bringing that fact home helped prompt communities to step up and say no, fairs aren’t going away.
Chambers cited Illinois as another state with a fiscal crisis, saying he’d even seen a story that the woman who does butter sculptures at the Illinois State Fair had not been paid yet. The state budget is upside down and fair funding is gone. He plans to speak at the January Illinois fair meeting because “that’s where we were four years ago; we’ve learned a lot and we have to share it.”
“My number one recommendation to Illinois is do a better job of telling your story,” Chambers said. “We tend to only talk about fairtime, not year-round implications. And we talk about numbers. That’s not the best way to tell our story.”
Calico thinks Illinois is as unique at California and that most fairs don’t receive any funding of any kind and haven’t for years. Communities are stepping up and claiming their fairs, she said. That’s important to perpetuate as the demographics change.
One way is to be involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) initiatives in the U.S. education system. It’s all the byword now, she said. Some call it STEAM and add Arts and Agriculture. There are numerous ways to leverage fair programs to be part of the fabric of education in America.
That’s what the changing of the guard will bring — continued relevance within the community.
Interviewed for this story: Steve Chambers, (916) 927-3100; Marla Calico, (800) 516-0313