Jul 28 2008
An Evening at the Fair
Welcome back!
I read in the paper this morning that Porter County Fair attendance was down this year. It’s being blamed on the tough economy.
This does not surprise me. There was no one there when my wife and I went (last Friday night), which was actually nice.
One of the things we were looking forward to before we moved back to Valpo from Chicago was the Porter County Fair. Lame, I know. But we always have a good time and enjoy hometown feel. The hometown feel is one of the reasons we moved back to Valparaiso from Chicago. We were almost not able to go (being poor and all - tough times will be over soon), but we scraped together the cash and were able to go.
We had a smashing time, but it cost an arm and a leg.
Attendance was down because it’s $7 per person to get in, then you have to eat. My wife and I went with $40 thinking that would be plenty to have fun.
By the time we ate (yummy burgers and fries and elephant ears), we were out of money. We were not able to ride any rides, play any of the games (which are a scam anyway) or buy anything from the shady dealers.
Since when did two people need $100 bucks to have a good time at the fair? Hell, we could have went to Kelsey’s and had steak for dinner for $40.
We had a great time anyway. The food was fantastic, the free entertainment was fun. We also enjoyed going through the animal sheds and seeing all the local businesses in the Porter County Expo Center (the Lego’s in the 4-H were impressive). Got a free map from the Porter County Democrats table (can’t pass up a free road map). We also ended up seeing all the friendly horses then watching some of the girls perform with their horses.
We also greatly enjoyed the quality time we spent together, even if we didn’t have money to do anything else at the fair, at least we were with each other. Check out my NWI photoblog for some of the pictures I took.
If the fair organizers are so worried about dropping attendance, maybe they should rethink what they charge for admission. After all the place is plastered with sponsor after sponsor.
I can’t wait until next year and I hope we have that $100 to have a little extra fun.
