JANESVILLE — Fair officials weren’t sure how the economy would affect this year’s fair.
Wayne Flury, fair board president, thought the fair could attract more people than usual because they wouldn’t be away on road trips with the price of gas so high.
Or it could attract fewer people because locals would be tightening their purse strings.
The answer was somewhere in the middle.
The 2008 Rock County 4-H Fair attracted 91,036 fair-goers to its grounds during six days of animal competitions, musical acts, midway adventures and greasy food.
That’s within 1 percent of the fair’s 20-year average of 91,729.
“We’re pretty much right on the money,” Flury said.
“It was an excellent fair: The weather was perfect; we had top-quality entertainment, and we just had lots and lots of success in our meat animal sale.”
The fair started with a bang with nearly 13,600 people passing through the gates the first day, well over the 9,800 average.
Attendance also was above average Friday and Saturday, when country veteran Randy Travis and teen heartthrob Corbin Bleu performed.
Flury said the fair offered a nice balance of veteran and up-and-coming acts this year. It tempered its country offerings with a visit from Bleu, a star of Disney’s wildly popular “High School Musical” series.
“We try to have some balance for the young people,” he said.
For the second year in a row, attendance was down Sunday, the last day of the fair. Sunday’s attendance of 12,900 was down 20 percent from the 20-year average of 16,300.
Flury wasn’t sure what caused the drop, but he said it’s natural for fewer people to come Sunday than the other days of the fair.
“It’s a natural thing that happens because people are preparing to go to work on Monday morning,” he said.
Even more important than attendance numbers, he said, was the fact that fair-goers and participants of all kinds enjoyed the fair.
“We got to see all of our youth achieve; we got to have a very safe and fun fair,” he said. “And there was a nice opportunity for all kinds of people to have a fair reunion with someone they may not have seen for a year …
“It still is a family fair.”
