The new ‘Taste of the Fair’ campaign was run entirely through the Indiana State Fair’s updated mobile app. (Photo by Indiana State Fair)
“This year’s fair for us was about enhancing things that we already had,” said Ray Allison, Indiana State Fair VP of Administration. “We rebranded a couple facilities on the campus. Our traditional Home and Family Arts Building was rebranded as the Indiana Arts Building, and we started the first phase of a five-year plan to upgrade that facility. This year we did some cosmetic work to make the building more appealing and added some competitions in the space for the first time, such as digital photography.”
But most exciting for Allison was the inclusion of new technology across the grounds. “We outfitted our grounds with Bluetooth beacons this year, so we had 200 beacons spread out around the grounds that interface with our mobile app. Not only were we able to push notifications through these beacons to our customers based on their location and their proximity to different attractions on the grounds, but we were also able to use that information to create heat mapping on different days and different times to see where customer movement was around the grounds. We will use that information in the future to help us program areas differently or a little bit better or confirm new things that we’ve done or longstanding attractions that are still popular. That will be a really powerful tool for us moving forward from a marketing, programming and entertainment perspective.”
This year’s fair also featured a new and improved mobile app. “[The new app] offered a lot of features that we weren’t able to offer before,” Allison commented. “It had a build your own itinerary tool that allowed our customers to go through the entire fair’s schedule and highlight the things they wanted to see and build their own personalized schedule. Taking it one step further, they were able to set alerts in their phones to remind them when things were happening around the grounds. We were able to put all of our exhibits, all of our concessions within the mobile app and allow people to search all of that.”
The new app capabilities also revolutionized the way the fair approached a time-honored tradition. “We’ve always had a signature food at the fair and, in years past, it was determined prior to the fair,” said Allison. “We would get concessionaires to enter that, and we would get judges (local radio personalities, stakeholders, friends of the fair) to come in and vote ahead of time on what would be the featured food at this year’s fair. Historically, we’d have maybe seven to 10 people participate. This year, we changed that and called it the ‘Taste of the Fair,’ and through our new mobile app, we allowed the public to vote on what their favorite food of the fair was. By doing that, we ended up with more than 20 entries. For the first 10 days of the fair, fairgoers were able to go to each of these locations, try the food, and vote through our mobile app. On day 11, we announced the ‘Taste of the Fair,’ and for the last few days of the fair, they were recognized. The ‘Taste of the Fair’ title drew extra attention to their booth for being the winner. It was very well received by the public, and it added a new element by allowing them to vote for their favorite fair food as opposed to us doing it prior to the fair and just announcing what that would be.”
Allison added that the fair took the rating function even farther to allow guests ”to rate not just the Taste of the Fair, but any concessions booth on the grounds, or any exhibit, attraction or event at the fair. They were able to rate that through our mobile app.”
The mobile app also engaged the fair’s younger audience by updating a popular children’s program. “‘The Wonder Trail’ is 10-12 stops around the grounds in different exhibits where we ask [the kids] a question about agriculture. Traditionally, they would have printed maps, fill them out, take them to our Farms Bureau display, turn those in, and they’d get a prize. This year, we added that in to our mobile app (we still gave them the option to pick up a map at one of our information booths). Through our mobile app, they were able to identify the 12 stops. We added QR codes to the stops, and they were able to take a picture of the correct answer and populate it in the app, and then they’d receive [the message] ‘You’ve now completed the Wonder Trail. Please come to the Farm Bureau to redeem your prize.’ They were able to take their mobile phones to the Farm Bureau to get their prize. Just another way to engage our customers.”
This year’s theme was Indiana’s Bicentennial — 200 years as a state. To celebrate, they converted a building on the campus to the Bicentennial Pavilion. The state tourism agency sponsored the building and unveiled a mobile unit that they’ll be traveling around the state with this fall to celebrate the Bicentennial. “Our state museum here in town has a Bicentennial-focused exhibit that contains 200 artifacts about Indiana, and they brought a piece of that to the fair,” Allison added.
In addition to the Bicentennial Pavilion, the fair connected with the state’s 92 counties to create what Allison refers to as “Indiana’s largest bison herd.” Each county around the state was encouraged to decorate a life-sized sculpture of a bison as they saw fit. “We had 29 counties display theirs at the state fair. We allowed public voting through our Facebook page to pick the people’s choice for the best bison, and we had 31,000 people that voted. We also had a judged portion that involved local artists who picked a judge’s winner. It was very well received by the public.”
Allison noted that engaging their customers through social media is “something that’s been a focus of ours for a few years now, and we’ve shifted a considerable percentage of our marketing dollars to social media and digital marketing. It’s been very successful for us. It’s allowed us to engage the public in a very different way. A very one-on-one, a very personal way that you can’t really do with radio, television and your traditional mediums. The bison competition and the Taste of the Fair were new elements this year that allowed us to take that to the next level.”
The new mobile app also served a practical safety purpose. “We’re a fair that is highly focused on safety and security, and it’s our top priority for our fairgoers,” Allison commented. “Given the challenges this year with the weather—particularly the rain—we did have a couple instances where we did need to shelter in place. We were able to use our mobile app to send push notifications to everyone that had downloaded our mobile app with instructions to shelter in place. So it added one more element into the mix of things we’ve done in the past—public address, area and building monitors—to reach our customers and give them safety and security information.”
Allison did note that the Aug. 5-21 fair did experience “some challenges with heat and nine days of rain; over four inches.” Allison suggested that this weather contributed to the attendance of 731,543 guests, down 19.4 percent from the previous year. “Overall it was a very good fair,” Allison added. “Those that were in attendance had a really good time.”
Gate admission ran $12, with children five and under entering free. Parking was $5, and the carnival offered $30 wristbands Wednesday through Sunday, $25 wristbands on Mondays, and $2 rides on Tuesdays.
While Allison stated that the fair was still working on final revenue numbers, he added that “Sponsorship this year was about $1.6 million across 75 sponsors, which is a pretty good year for us.”
A huge financial win for the fair was the completion of a $10 million fundraising campaign. “In 2014, our new Indiana Farmers Coliseum opened,” said Allison. “And part of the public/private partnership for building that facility was that our foundation, the Indiana State Fair Foundation, was charged with raising $10 million to support the renovation of the building. We started that effort in 2012 and completed it just before this year’s fair.”
The 2017 Indiana State Fair will run Aug. 4-20.
Interviewed for this story: Ray Allison, (317) 927-7559