Pleasant summer weather with barely any rain helped push attendance at the Indiana State Fair, Indianapolis, to an all-time high of 978,296, nearly 15 percent up over last year’s 853,942.
The figure slightly bests the previous record of 973,902, set in 2009.
“It has been an outstanding summer here,” said fair spokesman Andy Klotz. “There is no question that weather played a big part in our attendance. This year we had maybe one real rain shower, and it lasted maybe less than an hour and a half.
“Officially, our meteorologist said we had .79 inches of rain.”
Also, the service recorded that the highest the temperature got during the fair was 85 degrees, and the lowest was 52.
This is the second year in a row that the Indiana State Fair has had a meteorologist on the grounds for every day of the fair, which this year took place Aug. 2-18.
The company Schneider Electric, formerly called Telvent, has supplied the meteorology services as one of the measures enacted following the 2011 stage collapse at the fair that killed seven spectators and injured 58 others.
Another big draw at the fair was a new project, The Glass Barn, which the Indiana Soybean Alliance spent $2 million to construct and create on the grounds of the fair.
“It’s a 4,500-square-foot facility with four different areas,” Klotz said. “There are a lot of touch screen video games and people can do different farming activities. They learn what it takes to plant the farm. They plant seeds – a soybean field – and then they do different games, and that’s just one area.”
Another area featured a green screen that allowed fairgoers to choose a background against which to have their photo taken, which they then could email to themselves or to someone else.
Farmland, Ind.-based North American Midway Entertainment placed 53 rides on the midway, including 10 in a new kiddieland midway just for small children.
Owner Danny Huston “put a new feature to the midway,” Klotz said. “Our midway is on the west side of the fairgrounds. On the east side, Danny created a new kiddieland midway, which was extremely popular.”
The existing midway already had an area for children, but the new one catered to even younger kids, which allowed toddlers the opportunity to ride in a less crowded area without larger children and adolescents.
“That’s where they generated the most revenue,” Klotz said.
Carnival revenue was up, said Amy Girton, director of communications and media relations for NAME, but she could not disclose by how much.
Klotz also said the carnival experienced the best single-day gross ever at the Indiana State Fair on one of the weekend days.
Pay-one-price wristbands cost $25 on most days. The price was reduced to $15 on the fair’s Kids’ Day, and on $2 Tuesdays, each ride cost $2.
The fair’s old Pepsi Coliseum has been undergoing renovations and will reopen in time for next year’s fair with 8,200 seats and a plan for about four to six big-name, paid concerts and a new title sponsor.
In the meantime, the fair has used a permanent outdoor stage for free concerts, the Marsh Free Stage, with a capacity for about 5,000 on benches and with standing room.
Several of those concerts did very well, Klotz said, including the Happy Together Tour, Kevin Costner and Modern West, Matt Nathanson, Styx, Joe Nichols and Montgomery Gentry.
Other acts included Karmin, CoCo Jones, Hispanic Music Day featuring Banda Las Tapatias and Bana Pelillos, Vertical Horizon and Blind Melon, Parmalee and Rachel Farley, Theory of a Deadman, Lauren Alaina and Joe Pardi, Contemporary Christian Music Day headlined by Matthew West, the Sail Rock Tour headlined by Christopher Cross, Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band and Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Even after the fair returns to paid concerts next year, plans exist to continue presenting the free outdoor shows.
“We also will have a very notable lineup on the free stage,” Klotz said. “They are really popular. People really love coming out for those free shows.”
Budget for the entertainment was $1.2 million while the overall fair budget was in line with last year’s $10 million, Klotz said.
Gate admission cost $10, or $7 in advance, and children 5 and under were free, the same prices as last year. Also, for the first time, the fair offered online presales, which cost $7.
Fairgoers also could still buy tickets in advance at Walmart and CVS locations, and the online sales, which did well, did not appear to cut into stores’ business.
“We had to resupply them with tickets,” Klotz said.
In marketing, the fair spent $600,000 and continued to emphasize social media with contests and promotions. A scavenger hunt was held in which participants followed clues to a location in the city of Indianapolis where an individual was located.
“The first person there claimed the prize,” Klotz said. “We gained almost 3,000 followers on Twitter within a two-week period promoting the scavenger hunt and I know our Facebook went from about 85,000 to 100,000 in a three-week period right before the fair.”
A company also created a new smartphone app that fairgoers could use to find food vendors, exhibits and other fair attractions. The app was downloaded more than 15,000 times.
“We’ve had an app before and previously the most downloads we had was 6,700, so we doubled our downloads with this new app,” Klotz said. “It drew rave reviews from pretty much everyone who used it.”
Next year’s fair will be held Aug. 1-17.
Interviewed for this article: Andy Klotz, (317) 927-7500; Amy Girton, (765) 509-1169