By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
In recent weeks news reports across the state have chronicled the sad story of financial difficulties experienced by the Nevada State Fair organization. On January 28, State Fair officials announced that the 137 year old event was in danger of shutting down completely.
Though the State Fair had diligently tried to attract new attendees last year with an appealing new Wild West theme, the stale economy and rotten weather during the late summer Fair week kept people away. And the State Fair ended up with over $200,000 in debts unpaid.
As a result, State Fair officials are asking the public to help in meeting its debts and in footing the up-front costs for the 2011 event. Without nearly $300,000 in donations from the public by March 1, the Nevada State Fair will be forced to close its doors for the first time since its founding in 1874, State Fair officials have said.
This dire news has raised questions here in the Moapa Valley. With such gloomy news in the State Fair realm, some local residents have wondered just how our own Clark County Fair is doing with its finances. They have wondered if the Clark County Fair will be able to survive the great recession and still be around in the more distant future.
According to Clark County Fair Executive Director Todd Robison, the answer to that question is a cautious ‘yes’.
“The economy has had its toll on us, of course, and the (Clark County) Fair has become much more conservative in how we operate compared to a couple of years ago,” Robison said. “But we are still on solid ground.”
Robison said that it is difficult to make direct comparisons between the local Fair and the State Fair held in Reno. While there are some similarities between the two, there are some very important differences, he said.
One main difference is that the State Fair, held in August, has a lot more competition from other events which were held earlier in the summer at the same facility.
“The Reno Rodeo Committee operates the rodeo grounds where the State Fair is held,” Robison said. “The big Reno Rodeo is held in June and it is a fair-like event with free entertainment and a carnival. Having events in competition that way can tend to spread thin your attendance. Fortunately, we don’t have to deal with that kind of competition here.”
But where the two events do have some common ground is in the financial hurdles that they face, Robison said, and in how the economy affects them.
“We are both heavily dependent on gate money (walk-up admissions) for our revenues,” Robison said. “Without that coming in we are in trouble. If we have bad weather on a peak day and people don’t show up, it can really wash us away.”
Robison explained that financial success of a Fair has to be averaged over the longer term.
“There is just not a lot of quick profit margin in the Fair business,” Robison said. “But then again we aren’t trying to make a lot of money. We just want to put on a good show.”
Robison admitted that the past two years have been rough ones for the Clark County Fair.
In 2009 a rainy Saturday drove down fair attendance.
Last year weather was good and attendance numbers were up again. But people were not spending very much money, Robison said. Rodeo ticket sales, carnival ticket sales and concert attendance were all down significantly in 2010. In addition the Fair’s food vendors also felt the same financial hit.
“The Fair lost a significant amount of money over the last two years,” Robison said. “But we ran well in the black for a few years before that so it averaged out. Right now I’d say we are in about the same financial situation as we were back in 2007.
“Do we have tremendous cash reserves? No. But we are on firm footing.
“Even so, for every bad year you’ve got to have a good year to offset it.”
The shift in regional economic conditions have brought fundamental changes to how the Fair does business, Robison said.
“If you look at the regional economy of 2006-2008 and remember the way people were living and spending money back then; I think the Fair was doing some of the same things in running with much looser purse strings,” Robison said. “I wonder if some of that is what got the State Fair behind.
“But the past two years have made us really tighten our belt and turn every stone in trying to reduce expenditures.”
Robison was insistent that there are no plans to cut programs or to raise ticket prices in an attempt to bolster net profits.
“If you try to resort to those things, they’ll just come back to bite you,” Robison said. “But we have had to sit down with everyone we do business with and work together on cutting our expenses to the bone. We have been forced to change how we do business.”
The County Fair is also working to adapt better to the spending habits of its attendees, Robison said. To do that, the Fair is trying to appeal to a wider, multi-generational audience.
“We’ve got to offer something for every generation,” Robison said. “We can’t just cater to one age group or demographic segment.
“We’ve always been geared toward the family crowd and, of course, we’ll always continue to do that. But we’ve also recognized a need to reach out to a younger demographic. That group aged 15-30 have been shown to keep much looser purse strings on their spending money. Frankly, a lot of these are not really the family people. So we are working to offer more to that demographic as well.”
Another similarity shared by the State and County Fairs is the public misconception that the events are fully backed by public funding.
“People think that because it is called a State or a County Fair that it is funded by the State or County,” Robison said. “That isn’t necessarily the case.”
The Fair is planned and carried out by a non-profit organization governed by an independent Board of Directors who are volunteers. In addition, most of the work of the Clark County Fair is done by community volunteers.
Robison hastens to add that the Fair does receive some assistance from Clark County. The Fair has a seven year agreement with the County on the use of the Logandale Fairgrounds. By that agreement, the Fair is able to take over the Fairgrounds for a thirty day period.
“We agree to take it over during that time as if it was our property” Robison said. “That means we do all of the maintenance, repair and cleanup.”
If the Fair fully satisfies the agreement, at the end of the thirty days, the county gives the Fair back $25,000 as compensation.
“If we had to rent the facility, it would be significantly more than the $25,000 in the agreement,” Robison said. “So it is a good arrangement and we appreciate having a good relationship with the County.”
The County Fair also receives public support from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). Robison explained that when the LVCVA was established back in the 1950s, it was the Clark County Fair and Recreation Board, with the County Fair as its prime focus.
“Over the years, they got out of the Fair business and more into promoting regional visitation,” Robison said. “But they still honor that original charter and still give us support with what amounts to a sponsorship arrangement.”
“Of course, that means that they want something in return for their sponsorship,” Robison continued. “What they want is for us to spend marketing dollars outside of our region. We do a lot of marketing in Southern/Central Utah and in parts of Arizona to bring people to the area.”
Robison explained that in a typical year, 7-8% of Fair attendees travel more than 200 miles to come to the Fair.
Another major funding element for the Fair is private corporate sponsorship. Given such poor economic conditions in the region, it has been no surprise that those dollars have significantly decreased in the past two years, Robison said. But there might even be a light starting to shine at the end of that tunnel.
“We are seeing a slight turnaround from last year in sponsorship,” Robison said.
Over the past two years, Robison said that the Fair had worked carefully with its struggling sponsor base. “We sat down with them and recognized them for stickingwith us all these years,” Robison said. “We assured them that we were not going to turn our backs on them now just because they were having business trouble.”
So Fair officials sat down with sponsors and worked on creative solutions that forged longer term relationships, Robison said.
“I think those tactics are starting to help us now,” he continued. “There is still a lot of caution out there in spending money. But it is starting to stabilize and rebuild a little.”
Robison is hesitant to draw any conclusions or pass judgement on why the Nevada State Fair has found itself in so much trouble.
“I’d never want to put myself in a situation to judge the folks at the State Fair on what they are doing,” Robison said. “I’m not in their shoes and don’t really know their struggles.”
He said that he has his hands full in moving the Clark County Fair through the perilous and shifting economic waters experienced recently. In doing so, he said he just planned to continue to run a tight ship as well as to hope and pray for fair weather during the Fair weekend.
