How to Plan, Pay for and Put on a Wildly Successful Fair
Without Losing Your Mind, Your Family or Your Friends!
Creating Events For Increasing Fair Attendance
How do you increase attendance? Attract new patrons correct? And to attract new patrons, fair management needs to do some research and make some decisions. First, what demographic are you trying to reach? How do you determine which group to focus on? We have found this information in our survey. By doing a survey at your fair to learn about the current attendees and identifying patterns. If you aren't collecting demographic information annually or at least every other year you have no data to make good decisions. Your survey must include age (or a range), gender, zip code and ethnicity at a minimum. We recently discovered a...
Emergency Planning Resources and Tips
Are you and your team ready to face an emergency evacuation of your Fairgrounds during Fair? And what if something happened during a non-Fairtime event? Have you reviewed your emergency evacuation plan lately? Is it fairtime specific or can it also be used at any time? Do you conduct "emergency scenarios" on a regular basis as a training exercise for your team? Do you know what your emergency plan is? If you have had staff changes, is your emergency/evacuation plan up to date? Do your Board of Directors know what their role is if an emergency was to occur on your fairgrounds? Who is authorized to speak to media during an event?...
One Idea For An Agriculture Education Display
What a clever way to visually present beef by-products to your fairgoers.
12 Simple Easy Low Cost Ideas For Creating Interactive Agriculture Exhibits and Activities
This book contains 12 examples of how to create low cost, simple, and easy interactive displays. From simple photo ops to using hashtags to promote your fair on social media, each of these ideas is very easy to create without a large expense. This book can be used as a workbook. Following each example is a “Notes” page. Make sure to jot down any ideas you have on how you can incorporate a similar idea at your own event. Don’t try to do too many of these at once. Start with one idea, and then change it up the next year. The following year, add in another activity. Pretty soon, you’ll have multiple activities! Buy My...
6 Tips for Running A Productive Meeting
Meetings are a necessary evil of any business, but they can easily suck away everyone’s valuable time. With a few careful choices in meeting planning, a savvy leader can ensure everyone gets the information they need, without wasting the day. #1: Schedule only what you need. Rather than the usual thirty minute or hour block, go with 15 minutes, or even less. Meetings expand to fill their allotted time. #2: Don’t sit down. Getting comfortable around the conference table invites everyone to accept a longer meeting. Stand or walk, and you’ll get the meeting done on time. #3: Sound the alarm. Visibly set a timer, and everyone will be more...
4 Reasons You Should Attend A Fair Industry Convention
Convention season has arrived! Whether it is a Regional, State, National or International convention – it is a great opportunity to meet and network with other professionals in the Fair Industry. Many times the decision to attend a convention or conference is based on “costs” … registration, travel, lodging, meals, etc. In reality, the decision should be made on content, networking opportunities, trade show expo vendors, and learning about industry trends. So, how do you justify being away from the day to day operations of the fairgrounds to attend a convention? Follow along and you’ll have all the right reasons and maybe even decide to...
6 Financial Reports You Need To Review Monthly And Why
There are 6 reports every Fair CEO should be reviewing monthly. These reports are: Income and Expense Statement Balance Sheet Cash Flow Report for the current period Cash Flow Projection for next 6 months and past 6 months actual cash flow Accounts Receiveables Accounts Payables Income and Expense Statement The income and expense statement gives you an overview of the previous months financial activity in detail especially when reviewed along with the check register. There are many examples of income and expense statements available. Each Fair should have an overview income and expense statement for the overall organization, and...
What Makes County Fair’s Unique?
County Fair Definitions: According to Webster: a fair usually held annually at a set location in a county especially to exhibit local agricultural products and livestock. Wikipedia's definition of Fairs: A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. It is normally of the essence of a fair that it is temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Dictionary.com defines a fair as: noun 1. an exhibition, usually competitive, of farm products, livestock, etc., often combined in the U.S. with entertainment and held annually by a county or state. 2. a...
SketchUp for Layouts, Floorplans and More
Have you heard of Sketchup.com? It's a free software you can use for creating floor plans, layouts, exhibits, etc. If you don't have the budget for a CAD (computer aided design) software program, this is a great alternative with many bells and whistles. You can create 3D layouts as well. Imagine working with your team in designing a new layout for your exhibit building, or providing your team with an exact layout of how the building will look. You can use to distribute to vendors so they will know where their location is. This tool can also be used whenever you would provide a layout to anyone - including those who rent your facilities. You...
3 Ways To Use Grants To Offset Costs
There are hundreds of thousands of grants available to Fairs. Unfortunately many Fairs don't have the staff available to do the work required to find, apply, and monitor the grants. In those instances, Fairs, of any size, could do three things: 1. Find a local non-profit organization with a similar or complimentary message, purpose, audience. Look for other non-profit organizations in your city/town/region and even in the state. You can do a google search for "non-profits in my area". Review the list, check and see what their mission/purpose is by visiting their website. If you find they have the same or similar purpose, reach out to their...
Learn why every Fair and every Fair CEO should be actively participating in industry trade organizations and the benefits those organizations can provide to any Fair.
My upcoming book is a compilation of conversations with 10 Fair Industry professionals. From Fair CEO’s to entertainers, you will gain insight into what works and what doesn’t work. These candid conversations include discussions about entertainment, layout, finances, marketing, and more.
Enjoy these conversations! And start some of your own in your organization!