Three days of rain—and not the economy--put a damper on attendance at the 132nd Schoharie County Sunshine Fair.
Though sales of season and three-day tickets were both up, Doug Cater, Fair president, said the take at the gate was off $13,800 over the ’07 Fair.
“On the whole, we have to say we feel fortunate that, even with the weather, things turned out as well as they did,” Mr. Cater said Monday, even as workers broke down remnants of the six-day event behind him.
“It could have been a lot worse. It could have easily have been a $40,000 to $50,000 drop.”
Tuesday’s attendance was up a little, Mr. Cater said, and Saturday was the Fair’s best day by far.
“Thank God for Saturday,” Mr. Cater said. “Saturday night they parked more cars than they did the same night a year ago.”
But rain Friday forced the cancellation of the tractor pull-always one of the Fair’s biggest draws—and though the crowds still came out for events like Thursday’s bullriding, they spent a lot of their time keeping dry under the grandstand.
Final attendance figures are still being calculated, Mr. Cater said, but are expected to be down, probably at least 1,000, from ’07’s 77,000.
On the “up” side, Mr. Cater said, entries in most of the livestock shows were up as were entries in the English horse shows.
Seven six-horse draft horse hitches had the old-timers swooning, and nearly every musical performance drew a full house, Mr. Cater said.
“We were worried about the economy, but the weather turned out to be a bigger factor,” he said.
“There were lines at all of the midway games and the concessionaires were all pretty happy. Rain, that’s something we can’t do anything about. All we can do is make the best of it.”
This is the last year for a six-day Fair.
In 2009, the Fair will move to a nine-day run, from July 31 to August 8, a change directors will allow them to feature a bigger midway and tap into other visitors to other local attractions, including inductions at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.