Bad weather on big days and publicity about disruptive teens on the midway meant a 13.6 percent attendance decline at the Florida State Fair, Tampa, down to 382,418 from last year’s 442,910, said executive director Chuck Pesano.
Also, 99 disruptive teens were ejected from the Feb.6-17 fair on opening day and, nearly three hours later, one of them was struck and killed by a car crossing Interstate 4 near the fair.
As day dawned, “it was a typical first day of the fair,” Pesano said. “It was student day and Hillsborough County schools, the eighth largest district in the United States, were off. But during the evening some of the teenagers started running around and creating a disruption.”
More teens were ejected than in the past, however, and one of them, 14-year-old Andrew Joseph III, according to news accounts, was killed while crossing I-4 at 10:45 p.m. after being ejected from the fair at around 8 p.m.
The boy’s parents were supposed to pick him up from fair gate 4 at 11 p.m. but instead, Joseph left that site to cross the interstate going toward the Seminole Hard Rock Café & Casino, Pesano said.
“Nobody knows why he would cross the interstate, away from the fairgrounds, when he was supposed to be picked up by his parents,” Pesano said.
The weather also played a part in the smaller attendance figure. The first day usually sees about 75,000 fairgoers pass through the gates, but the Florida State Fair had only 47,000, 28,000 fewer, “and usually on the Kids Day, the majority are riding rides and buying armbands.”
The next day, the first Saturday, also was rainy and had an attendance of only 24,000, the worst Saturday attendance in 19 years, Pesano said.
“A typical Saturday is 65,000-70,000,” he added. “It rained all day.”
The rain cleared on Sunday but the temperatures reached only the low 60s and it was windy. “It was not a pristine day.”
The independent midway featured 117 carnival rides from 19 different companies and was down only 10 percent, which Pesano attributed to a new “Fun Card” that allowed the fair to offer pay-one-price wristbands for the two Saturdays, “which we haven’t had on the independent midway."
“On Saturdays, we had higher per caps, so that helped soften the attendance drop,” he added.
The Fun Card, offered by a Colorado company with the same name, allowed the fair to allocate the funds from the rides equitably to all the different carnivals.
“In the past, because we have anywhere from 15 to 20 operators, if we did pay-one-price, we would have to have some methodology in which to allocate the money,” Pesano said. “With the Fun Card, we scanned everybody who went on rides and we could allocate based on the number of people riding the rides and the value of the rides. It allowed us not to have to sell tickets to come up with a ratio in order to split the gross revenues.”
The wristbands cost $30 the day of and $25 in advance, with special prices of $15 on Wednesdays and $20 on Thursdays, Pesano said.
The top 10 rides were the Florida State Fair Slide (owned by the fair), the Sky Glider (Sky Fair), Big Bamboo (McDonaghs), the Himalaya (Wade), King Circus (SnT), Magic Maze (Lauther), Magnum (Wood), Himalaya (Dreamland), the Comet II Coaster (Wade) and Super Himalaya (Reithoffer).
All but one of the concerts held in the 3,000-seat Entertainment Hall was free. The 1970s band America and Sister Hazel each drew 2,000 and Uncle Kracker drew 2,500. The annual Country Gold concert featuring Leroy Van Dyke and T.G. Sheppard drew 4,000 in two shows and tickets cost $10 or $15.
The entertainment budget for the fair was $699,000 and included all the grounds shows, Pesano said. In spite of the attendance drop, the fairs final numbers will come out in the black – with overall income of $11,825,000 and expenses of $7,419,000, the fair netted $4,405,000.
Also, adult admission cost $13 on weekends and $11 on weekdays, up $1 from last year, resulting in gate revenues of approximately $2,980,000, up slightly from last year’s $2,970,000.
“It was a decision that we hadn’t gone up in six years,” Pesano said. “With costs going up and since we don’t charge for parking, the board decided it was appropriate to add a dollar.”
Also on the positive revenue side, sponsorships were up about 25 percent over last year, with Lazydays as a $100,000 sponsor for both the fair and year-round.
The marketing budget was $511,500 and the fair uses not only traditional ad buys such as print, radio, TV and billboards but also all major social media forms.
“We have individuals that are dedicated to Twitter and Facebook,” Pesano added. “It has become a growing area to get information. We do have people that do that to keep those things active and to keep those things fresh on those areas.”
Terri Parnell Longphee, director of sales and marketing, said social media efforts “focus more on content and less on contests. We made a schedule where we would post on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram one to two times hourly and more if there was time-sensitive content. We used photos of the rides, foods, exhibits and animals to provide the experience of the state fair.”
In foods, the Ramen Noodle Burger featured a bun made of ramen noodles as well as slaw and an Asian sauce. Fairgoers also could try the 3Bs burger, made of beef, bacon and brisket.
Also, bacon maple ice cream did really well, said Pesano. “Every time I went by there, the line was really big. It’s got a little bit of sweetness and real chunks of bacon have saltiness.”
Next year’s dates will be Feb. 5-16.
Interviewed for this article: Chuck Pesano, Terri Parnell Longphee, (813) 621-7821.