Clay County Fair’s Hot Summer Travel This year we visited the Calgary Stampede, North Dakota
We were able to see Etix in
State Fair and the Rockingham County Fair in Virginia. We are big advocates on visiting other fairs to see how they do things. We encourage our board and staff members to visit at least one fair (in or out of state) each year and report back to the board one thing our fair does better, one thing they do better, and one thing we will implement at our fair. Calgary Stampede: Our trip to Calgary was a blast
and we came back with so many ideas to incorporate in our fair. Ms. Sandi from the Stampede was a huge help to us, she set up our meetings with different staff members to ensure we covered all of the areas that we were interested in. She also made sure that we were taken care of arriv- ing and departing from the stampede. We received the royal treatment from begin- ning to end. Some of our takeaways were: We enjoyed their hospitality spaces and will look at im- plementing something simi- lar. They did this very well! We really liked how they set
aside a space in their competitive exhibits for their volun- teers to display their work. This is something we will look at adding.
They also did a great job with recognizing their vendors and giving them awards through- out the stampede. We will be looking at implementing addi- tional awards in our fair based on this experience. Their recycling program was something to be in awe of. It’s amazing to think that we are the same length of time as they are but the way they do things is on a whole other
level, but we are able to utilize their structure for our fair. One of the most impressive areas that probably doesn’t
get enough mentioning, was their AgEducation building. We were amazed with the activities available in this building. North Dakota State Fair: Our trip to the North Dakota
State Fair was interesting to say the least. We got stranded in Minnesota due to bad weather in the area. All of the area hotels were sold out, but luckily for us the new airport hotel felt sorry for us and sold us rooms that were not finished at the time- we didn’t mind! Our purpose for this trip was to visit Etix, because we were in the market for a new ticket vendor. Although, we spent more time traveling to North Dakota than we did actually in North Dakota, we learned a lot during our time there. Some of our takeaways from this trip were: We enjoyed catching up with General Manager, Renae
Korslien, she was very enthusiastic and proud of her fair, as she should be. We also got to see some of our Florida friends that we
were not expecting to see. We saw Jeannie Keaton St. Lucie County Fair and Lawrence from K9 Frisbee Dogs.
FAIRCRACKER-FALL 2018
action, which was a huge benefit for our decision on which company to go with. We enjoyed seeing the ag-
riculture show ring, livestock barns, and the 911 Memorial. While we were in Minot,
North Dakota, we visited their #2 tourist attraction, the Airplane Museum. We had a blast being able to climb in, on, and through many planes while learning about aviation history. Rockingham County Fair: We flew into Washington D.C. and traveled about 2 hours to the fair. This trip was full of surprises! We picked this trip to see how Saffire Tickets worked in action, as well as, worked with Deggeller Attrac- tions. We arrived on Senior Day and enjoyed watching the Seniors have fun at the fair. Some of our takeaways from this trip were: The community pride in this town was evident and it’s
also important to build relationships with your front line peo- ple: hoteliers, gas station employees, restaurant staff, etc.. When we asked these people about the fair or what to do in the area, it was a mix of responses. We will definitely be
taking this experience and working on it in our own commu- nity. We got to see some of our friends from Deggeller and
Dennis Lee, and Lawrence from K9 Frisbee Dogs (he thought we were stalking him by this point). The volunteers at this fair were very passionate and loved
their fair. They were very helpful with our questions and we learned that if you take the time to talk to your volunteers, you will learn a lot! We were able to use Saffire Tickets and have hands on
experience, which was very im- portant for us. As our luggage cools down
from a busy travel schedule, It was a fun and well worth the miles traveled. At the end of our travels, we decided to pick Saf- fire Tickets as our ticket vendor for 2019 and we will be bringing a host of new ideas to our 2019 fair from our trips. Our advice to other fairs, if you have the op- portunity to visit an out of state fair, take it from us, it’s worth it and you should go!
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