Central States Fair attendance up 10 percent - KOTA Territory News

Central States Fair attendance up 10 percent

The Central States Fair ran into its third day Sunday, with almost a full week to go.
 
Fair organizers are reporting a pretty decent bump in attendance over the first couple days, but vendors say they aren't really reaping the benefits.

In large part, they claim, because of the competition.
 
"There's only so many dollars to go around," said Mike Sell, owner of S&S Concessions, a company that's been at the fair since 1991.
 
It's tough for people like Sell to carve out a niche in the market.
 
"We do the corn dogs, the funnel cakes, the corn, and a bunch of sandwiches and different things," he said, "and right down the row from us there's the same people doing the same kind of food."
 
So Sell said this fair looks like it'll be about average for them. That's despite lower vendor turnout.
 
"We've got a couple [vendors] who won't be here until Monday," said Ron Jeffries, the fair's general manager.
 
This year, he said, they have the crowds to support more vendors.
 
"We were up about almost 10 percent the first night, which was really wonderful. And our carnival count was up about 10 percent, too. So that was great," he said. "We finally had some nice, cool evenings, and people came out in droves."
 
But even with the nice weather, he called it "amazing" that they saw such strong numbers.
 
"We were slammed with competition" the first night, he said. "There was a Bob Dylan concert, there was a .38 Special concert up in Deadwood," to name a couple competing events.
 
"To be able to hold our own, and even make an increase in that," Jeffries said, "was really remarkable."
 
Part of the reason could be the fair's foray into social media.
 
"We started doing quite a bit now on Facebook," he said. "We more and more 'likes' every day."
 
They're up to about 1,500 now. But that might not be enough for vendors to see a spike in business.
 
"It'll end up being an average, typical fair, I believe," predicted Sell.

Jeffries isn't sure how the fair will hold up the rest of the week, but he's optimistic the constantly changing events and performances will keep people coming back.