WILMINGTON — The 2018 Clinton County Fair is in the books and went off without any major hitches. according to Fair Board President Scot Gerber.
“Overall we had a really good fair; everything went well,” said Gerber. “It takes a huge amount of people and a lot of work, whether it’s the junior fair side or the senior fair side, but everyone worked well together and pulled it off.”
“I appreciate everybody’s support in getting things done,” he added. “Everybody pitched in in every direction.”
He said the eight-day fair’s attendance was about average compared to past fairs.
“The first day (Saturday, July 7) we set a record, then it kind of evened out the rest of the week and ended about the same as normal.”
Mother Nature also cooperated — for the most part, with hardly any storms and accompanying mud and clean-up to worry about as opposed to the 2017 fair.
“We had several really nice days, then it got a little warm towards the end,” said Gerber. “But it is July.”
He said the regional tractor pull was again “good for attendance, but the heat hurt us Friday and Saturday evenings. All in all the tractor pull numbers were where they were in the past; there were a lot of people out there.”
Gerber said the fair’s new one-price admission/ride ticket policy was mostly a success — daily gate entry this year was $10, which included mechanical amusement rides.
“We heard minimal complaints; I think the majority of people liked it,” said Gerber. “From a financial aspect it cost us more money than in years past, but it made things a lot cleaner and nicer for the gate people and for the people who wanted to ride the rides — it cost them significantly less. That worked out very well.”
Fair Board member Greta Gray told the News Journal prior to the fair, “We know that families live on a budget, so we feel that now families can feel more welcome to come to the fair and enjoy activities along with the food and beverages.”
“With the new ride company it gave us the option to re-imagine the midway along with pricing structure to our patrons. So with the $10 daily paid admission a fair-goer can turn in their daily ticket for a ride armband.
“Historically, with the gate admission and armband, it would have been a total of $17, so this is quite a bit of reduction for families to attend the fair. And along with that we still wanted to be fair to those who purchased season passes.”
This year’s fair also avoided any issues such as last year’s swine flu outbreak in the hog barn, which brought a halt to some fair activities.
