BENTONVILLE — After a disappointing first two years at its new digs in Vaughn, the Benton County Fair needed to shine in 2009. It needed to be the kind of family event that would thoroughly delight visitors and make them eager to return for the 2010 edition. In short, it needed a comeback.
Unfortunately, the 105th Benton County Fair was largely a disappointment.
Sure, the weather didn't help - It rained (or threatened to rain) much of the week. But Mother Nature doesn't deserve all of the blame. Heck, this year's Grape Festival in Tontitown had some torrential rain, but people still showed up in droves that day.
One problem was the fair's selection of carnival rides.
Tim Craig, president of the fair board, said only nine of the 23 mechanical rides originally expected showed up. According to Craig, a subcontractor for Dillard Cool Breeze Carnival dropped out of the fair at the last minute, so late that no replacements could be found in time.
That's inexcusable. A fair without carnival rides is like a sundae without hot fudge. The loneliest guy at last week's fair had to be the one selling those tickets for the rides.
This had to be especially embarrassing for fair officials, because this year they introduced the "Mega Pass." For $50, a person could take all the turns he wanted on the mechanical rides. Doesn't really seem worth it, though, when there are only nine rides.
We are told that attendance at the fair was down for a second straight year, but as of late last week - several days after the fair had packed up and left town - no one could provide attendance figures. Huh? We're talking about basic bookkeeping, folks, not astrophysics.
The other day, this newspaper received a complaint from one of our dear readers because we have not published the winners of the various fair activities.
"Interest in the fair needs to be kept up! By reading your paper, we would not know what a real deal the fair is," this person wrote.
Our response: We'd love to give you the fair results, butfair officials haven't provided them yet. Why? We're not sure.
As late as last year, names of the winners were provided to us almost instantly. Not this year.
As for informing people about "what a real deal" the fair is, did anybody do a better job of covering the event than The Daily Record's Tabatha Hunter.
From Sept. 13 through Sept.
20, this newspaper published nine fair-related stories by Hunter, along with 14 fair-related photos taken by our photographers, almost all of which appeared on the front page. Good gracious, to cover it any better, we would have had to open an office on the fairgrounds.
But back to the folks who actually run the fair, and are actually in charge of promoting it (that would be the fair board, not the newspaper).
Craig said the board would do "whatever it takes" to make sure the fair comes back strong.
We hope that it does. The fair is a great tradition; our summers wouldn't be the same without it.
But as we noted on this page back in June, the Benton County Fair Association has struggled with its finances since moving from its longtime home near downtown Bentonville to its current home in Vaughn.
Lots of folks weren't too happy with the move, and we don't blame them. But something had to be done; the old fairgrounds' facilities were deteriorating. The new fairgrounds offer nice buildings and ample space. And the BCFA got a great deal on the land from Wal-Mart.
That having been said, the location has its drawbacks, primarily the fact that it's in the middle of Nowhere. In any case, there's no going back now. Fair promoters have to work hard to let people know it's out there and that it's worth seeing.
The fair needs more to reestablish itself as the place to be in mid-September. A used-book sale? A pie-eating contest? A chance to win a new car? We're not sure, but all ideas should be explored. The point is, someone needs to inject some life into the fair if it's going to thrive.
Otherwise, the Benton County Fair could become a thing of the past. We'd hate to see that happen.
Opinion, Pages 14 on 09/27/2009