Sheep thrills help bring big bucks at fair

Results of this year’s Spokane County Interstate Fair had county commissioners smiling this week as though they’d just seen a little kid tossed off a sheep.

A new “mutton busting” event was one of several successes in the Sept. 7-16 fair, according to Commissioner Mark Richard.

Kids who got tossed off their speeding sheep would come up with dirt in their teeth “and a grin from here to here,” Richard said Tuesday, using a finger to draw a smile on his face.

“Every time I walked by that, it was just packed,” Richard said. “Everybody loves to see a little kid thrown off of a sheep, I guess.”

A 7.4 percent increase in attendance from last year, a 21.2 percent increase in carnival sales and the best food sales since at least 1993 also gave commissioners reason to smile.

Officials haven’t yet tallied the bottom line, but county Fair and Expo Center Director Rich Hartzell said this year’s fair “definitely” will be in the black.

The fair was “a great, great success,” according to Commissioner Todd Mielke, and “wonderful,” according to Commissioner Bonnie Mager.

“Ten days of beautiful weather really helps,” Hartzell said.

Indeed, the weather helped, commissioners said, but they also credited several innovations Hartzell introduced in his first season as director. Among other things, he took out “rain insurance.”

For the first time, carnival day passes were offered in advance at the fair office, and people snapped up $74,000 worth of them. Passes sold in advance for $20, while the price at the fair was $30 on weekends and $25 on weekdays.

“We call it rain insurance,” Hartzell said. “We’re kind of betting that it might rain part of the time, and (customers) are kind of betting it won’t. That’s what insurance is all about.”

In other rain insurance, advance sales of group-rate admission tickets jumped 68 percent, from $12,500 last year to $21,000, as the fair staff focused its marketing on corporations. Groups willing to buy 20 tickets at a time got a 50 percent discount.

As it turned out, Hartzell didn’t need the hedge but still was glad to have it.

With advance sales, carnival gross receipts this year edged near the $1 million goal Hartzell said fair officials have had for the past couple of years. This year’s carnival grossed $945,000.

Next year, Hartzell plans steps to reduce the lines that sometimes formed as customers waited to buy their advance passes.

Hartzell believes a decision to spend more on entertainment this year boosted attendance.

“We had Kellie Pickler, the Village People, Ronnie Milsap and Weird Al (Yankovic) – and Weird Al was a sellout,” Hartzell said. “Where in the past we might have one or two strong days, this year I think we had four.”

This year’s fairgoers had healthy appetites, consuming more than $1.5 million worth of food, a 22.3 percent increase from last year.

Aside from the fact that there were about 16,000 more people to munch elephant ears this year, fairgoers may have had more cash in their wallets when they got a whiff of something tasty.

There were three times as many cash machines on the fairgrounds this year, and they were more visible.

While there were a couple of ATMs inside buildings last year, six of them were spread throughout the fairgrounds this year. Outdoor machines inside red canopies were marked by red flags on tall poles.

The ATMs dispensed $510,060 in 8,775 transactions, and 75 cents of every $1.99 transaction fee went into the Interstate Fair coffers. Also, Hartzell said, the fair’s new ATM provider eliminated the problem of some brands of plastic being rejected in previous years.

“We’re giving people a chance to get their money,” he said as commissioners chuckled. “We’re here to serve.”