Despite less funding, state fair preparing for bigger, better celebrations

Though sponsorship is down, and the University isn’t funding its own IU Day at the state fair, the smell of deep-fried vegetables and the sound of country music will still fill the Indianapolis air this month.

“A lot of companies are cutting back. There’s no question about that,” said Andy Klotz, director of public relations at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. “Our sponsorship is just a touch down from last year’s, but this year we’re also receiving new ones. We’ll ride this out like everybody else.”

Sponsorship is down from $1.5 million last year to $1.3 million this year, but Klotz said the event has budgeted to bring in 900,000 people compared to last year’s 860,000 attendees.
    
IU presence

Instead of spending the usual $200,000 to $300,000 on IU Day like the University did the past three years, IU will spend $50,000 on sponsorship.

The IU School of Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Dentistry and the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation will partner with Clarian Health and provide a variety of free screenings for visitors.

“We were trying to find a role for the University where we are actually giving something back,” said Valerie Pena, executive director and chief of staff for the IU Office of Public Affairs and Government Relations. “I would actually love to see this partnership grow. I think we could add the optometry school. At the end of the day, we could affect someone’s life with this.”

IU students, faculty and staff will be conducting the tests, which will vary from blood pressure, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder screenings to body mass index, flexibility and glucose screenings.

“The beauty is there’s a huge number of screenings,” Pena said. “Our students are also very active in this part, which didn’t happen before.”

IU is also sponsoring a trolley for the 17 days of the fair, and each campus will have its own booth at the Toyota Expo Hall, which is filled with information from universities throughout the state.

Traditional Arts Indiana – a partnership with IU and the Indiana Arts Commission – will also present a fiddle contest featuring bluegrass to western swing from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 15 at the Pioneer Village Opry House.

“We never wanted to cancel our sponsorship because we wanted to show our support for the fair,” Pena said. “Maybe it won’t have quite the sizzle when you hit that one street with all the booths on IU Day, but before we were only there one day, and now we’re there every day.”

4-H

The fair is also adding five days this year to accustom all the 4-H events and members showing their sheep, swine, rabbits, poultry, horses and cattle.

“We had many events we called pre-fair events, which were mostly 4-H,” Klotz said. “We wanted to give these people an opportunity to enjoy the fair and not just visit for their event.”

The fair has spent $9 million to renovate two of the three 4-H exhibit halls during the past five years, and renovation is beginning on the third hall.

“4-H is a huge reason for the fair. We love our relationship with our 4-Hers,” Klotz said. “We try to put their exhibits in a wonderful, welcoming environment because it’s like
the Super Bowl of 4-H.”

Food and entertainment

Each year, there are about 120 different food stands serving delicacies attendees will be tempted to try. Though the fair receives a percentage of the sales from each vendor, the majority of the sales go to the individual vendor, and the vendors have to reapply each year to sell their corn on the cob or their funnel cakes.

“By and large, we get most of the same vendors to come back every year,” Klotz said. “We’ve got everything covered from deep-fried vegetables to state fair bakery creams.”
Though buying food can get a little pricey, the fair also offers a free stage with a lineup including MC Hammer, Bucky Covington, Howie Day, the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge and the Timberworks Lumberjack Show.

“For entertainment, we look at things we think would be interesting to people who come to our fair,” Klotz said. “If things are really popular, we’ll bring them back like last year’s lumberjack show. It was so popular every show was sold-out.”

The Hoosier Lottery Grandstand will also be home to Keith Urban, Kelly Clarkson, Journey, Jason Mraz, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and others.

New this year is the Indy Super Pull, which will bring back the tractor pull to the fair for the first time in two decades.

The fair also started a Facebook account last fall and a Twitter account two months ago at which free tickets are given away. New event information is often released on the Twitter account first, Klotz said.

“It’s just a great place for family entertainment,” Klotz said. “Generations of Hoosiers come down to show their animals and take in the food they can only find here.”