SHARING DETAILS ABOUT FAIR … Fulton County Fair Board Secretary Luanne Strauss, right, shared her passion for the fair with Archbold Rotarians recently. After serving nearly 25 years on the auxiliary fair board, for the last two years she has been the Clinton Township representative on the fair board. The program was arranged by Rotarian Jodi Herman, left.
Although the Fulton County Fair’s annual run over the Labor Day weekend is just seven days, it requires a year-long commitment by the 15-member fair board and 17-member auxiliary fair board to make it one of Ohio’s best-attended fairs. And fairground activities aren’t limited to fair week.
Luanne Strauss, the fair board secretary, told Archbold Rotarians about one of the fairgrounds’ newest events — the Halloween Spooktacular.
Now in its fourth year, the three-day event draws 400 campers and carloads (at $5 a car) of people for the food and family fun.
For the fair itself, she said they host 700 campers every year with a waiting list of 300. Attendance at this year’s 166th Fulton County Fair topped 318,000, making it the fourth straight year that attendance topped 300,000.
Interestingly, 239,418 persons walked through the gates during the Labor Day weekend (Friday through Monday) for the largest weekend attendance ever.
Strauss noted that 1972 was the first year when attendance topped 100,000. And, the largest single day attendance of 75,476 was set on Saturday in 2016.
She explained those numbers are why this year’s fair had more than 100 food vendors with the milkshake stand serving more than 42,000 shakes and the beef producers serving more than 26,000 ribeye sandwiches. She added that there’s also a waiting list for food vendors.
Work on booking next year’s headline grandstand entertainment will get underway shortly after the new year begins when the state fair board convention is held in Columbus in January.