Creative Events Come Through in the Clutch for Western Fairs

Jennifer Seward from the Redwoods Empire Fair in Ukiah, Calif., Chris Carpenter of the San Mateo (Calif.) County Event Center, and Kelly Violini from the Monterey (Calif.) County Fair trade ideas after their panel, "Adopting Interim Events" at Western Fairs Association's annual conference in Anaheim, Calif., Jan 8-11.

REPORTING FROM ANAHEIM, CALIF. — From beerfests to food truck rallys to sponsor dollars, increased interim-event  income for fairgrounds was a popular topic for fair managers attending this year's Western Fairs Association convention here Jan. 8-11.

During a panel titled “Adopting Interim Events,” Megan Ferber from the exhibits department at San Bernardino County Fair, Victorville, Calif., said that they have “just had to come up with ideas for other revenue” given the tight economy and loss of state funding. They're "focusing on generating profitable events for the other 49 weeks of the year,” said Ferber.

“I think creativity is the sign of the times right now,” agreed Kelly Violini, CEO of the Monterey (Calif.) County Fairgrounds and executive director of the Heritage Foundation.

In 2011, that fairgrounds hosted a golf tournament, 4-H and FFA shows, and Ranch Sorting and Team Roping, and also reinstated the Monterey National Horse Show and the Monterey County Queen Contest.

“All of the old records were lost for events that hadn’t happened in many years,” Violini said, “so we just sort of worked off of old memories and pieced them together.”

Violini said they also used silent and live auctions to raise more than $2,000.

The most profitable interim event at the Monterey County Fairgrounds was — by far — Beerfest. New to the facility this year, Beerfest was the brainchild of a local distributor whose event had become too big for him to handle. Since Violini is in charge of large events all the time, she approached the distributor and offered to run the entire beerfest in return for $4 for each ticket sold.

“It was already an established event that happened to rent the fairgrounds, so that made things even easier,” said Violini. The fairgrounds were in charge of admissions, security, setup and tear down.

“We also suggested that he do a VIP hour, where people can pay $55 instead of $40 and come in at 11:30 a.m. instead of 12:30 p.m.” Violini said. The event, which ends at 4 p.m., attracted 5,600 attendees.

“It’s about $11,000 for them to rent the facility for the day, so the fair retained that revenue as well as all of the per-ticket money, which ended up being over $22,000,” said Violini.

The Monterey County Fairgrounds also makes off-season money by always charging for parking and cuts costs by using community service hours.

“We have a roller derby team that uses our facility twice a week for a minimal fee and, in exchange, they provide us with 1,500 community service hours each year, so we hire them to work our interim events,” said Violini.

Chris Carpenter from San Mateo (Calif.) County Event Center, said their most important, off-season moneymakers come from rentals and the success of each depends on good data research. “The majority of our business is space rental for public events, trade shows, parties and corporate events,” he said, “I always recommend that people try to rent their facilities first and — if they can’t — try to promote or co-promote.”

“We’ve also done extensive studies on demographics. You can find market data through your local chambers or look at census numbers,” said Carpenter. When San Mateo County Event Center found out that over 80 percent of its target market drive as opposed to using public transportation, they switched to using much more morning-commuter advertising on radio instead of television ads.

“Doing your research can make you smarter about where to spend your dollars,” said Carpenter. “It also makes you more desirable to a hunting event that wants to rent out your space if you can tell them how many hunting or fishing licenses are issued in the area.”

San Mateo County Fairground’s most successful interim event is a food truck gathering, done four times in 2011 and possibly expanding to six events in 2012.

“The first time we did the food trucks we made $7,000 off food and beverage and $22,000 from parking,” said Carpenter. Ovations, the food provider for San Mateo County Fairgrounds, sold beer and wine at the event. The fairgrounds took on the expense of providing the facility, the security and parking staff, but it ended up being about a $22,000 pay day overall.

“The food truck phenomenon is growing fast, and they’re inexpensive events to put on, so it’s definitely something to look into,” Carpenter noted.

Though it isn’t practical for his facility because it has five other venues near it, Carpenter recommended fair managers reach out to promoter Live Nation, which will sometimes do a straight rental for concerts but, in other cases, will offer to share their promoter profit if the venue shares the risk.

Jennifer Seward’s secret to staying successful despite funding cuts is finding key sponsors.

Seward, CEO of Redwoods Empire Fair in Ukiah, Calif., said, “I believe in using other people’s money to make money — and being able to sell that idea to people is really quite easy.”

The facility’s ‘Battle of the Bands’ is sponsored by a radio station that provides the bands and all of the advertising. The venue also hosted a BBQ competition where all of the barbeques were donated by a local hardware store and the prize money was provided by the local Taco Bell.

“Our sponsors know that us bringing people to an event brings them more business — we’ve proven it — so they generally go along with sponsoring our ideas,” said Seward. This minimizes the expenses as much as possible.

“Not all of the events are successful,” warned Seward, “but you have to try.”

Interviewed for this article: Chris Carpenter, (650) 574-3247; Megan Ferber, (760) 951-2200; Jennifer Seward, (707) 462-3884; Kelly Violini, (831) 372-5863