Brown County Fair Still Free
Published August 16th, 2006
When the Sioux Empire Fair raised its admission to five dollars this year, organizers blamed increased costs. But the Brown County fair, which just opened its gates Tuesday, is able to keep its admission and parking free.
The Brown County Fair pulls in more than 200 thousand people. And every one of them gets in free.
Fair Board President Roger Huettl says, “The fair is for the people, we put it on for the people and we want the people to come.”
Other large fairs across the state charge some kind of an admission. But Brown County has avoided a gate fee by finding volunteers to make up nearly the entire staff. Only five employees are paid during fair week.
Huettl says, “Our fair board is all volunteers, it’s 25 members and we have a large group of friends of the fair that help us.”
And while fair organizers say the free gate admission helps keep people coming back year after year, vendors say it also helps them out.
18 year food vendor Bonnie Armstrong says, “We have people that come up at noon hour, business people, and have their noon lunch and they turn around and they’re back at supper. If they had to pay a gate admission each time they would not do that probably.”
Fair officials say the people who come back day after day are what make the Brown County Fair one of the highest attended in the state.
Fair Manager Larry Gerlach says, “We have a lot of people come back everyday, we like that, it just works for us that we have enough to see and do and participate in that you come back to do something every day and to be here all week long and enjoy it and we’re a family fair.”
And fair officials hope to stay as affordable as possible for years to come.
Brown County officials understand why other fairs have to charge a gate fee with rising costs. They say they’re just fortunate to have volunteers to help them out, and hope they’ll never see the day they have to charge admission.
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