LOCAL

Changes plentiful for 2017 Ross County Fair

Chris Balusik
Chillicothe Gazette

CHILLICOTHE - A new ticketing system, infrastructure improvements, a less congested midway and a performance by the season six runner-up on television's "The Voice" will greet visitors to this year's Ross County Fair Aug. 5 through 12.

In preparation for the 2017 event, the fair board decided to make several changes and improvements to the grounds themselves, starting with the removal of campsites that had existed between the commercial building and Fairgrounds Road.

"Last year, we notified all of those campers that that camping was going away," said fair board President Brad Cosenza. "Our intent is, eventually, to move the commercial building back towards the road which will give us more space in the midway, but we're looking for some funding for that right now, begging and pleading for anyone that would want to be a sponsor of that."

In the meantime, some of the concessionaires at this year's fair will be moved into that space, as well as both some previous rides and some new ones from Triple Treat Shows that could alleviate some congestion in the midway area.

A new contract has also been signed for a new public address sound system that will provide two major benefits to fairgoers this year. First, it will make it easier for visitors to hear and understand severe weather announcements and get to a safe location. Second, it will allow for fairgrounds-wide updates to be broadcast from the show arena so that those who are camping or elsewhere on the grounds when a particular showing at the arena is about to begin can determine when they should start making their way to the arena to see a loved one show an animal.

Some of the public address upgrades will involve fiber optics, which bring with it the possibility of adding security cameras at some point in the future.

The flower and vegetable building is getting a new ceiling, doors and air conditioning to prevent the projects in the structure from prematurely wilting from the heat, and water and electric upgrades are being done in some of the older areas of the campgrounds and elsewhere on the grounds.

"Instead of adding more campsites this year — we've done that the last couple of years — this year we're starting to look at the infrastructure that we have in place and the older stuff is getting replaced basically," Cosenza said. "We're trying to prevent the outages, the electrical outages and the water line breaks that we have during the fair by upgrading the stuff we already have."

In one other infrastructure note, the fair board continues its exploration into improving wifi access and reliability at the grounds, conducting an online survey this year to see what visitors may want. Cosenza noted, however, that to do what they would really like to do in that regard would likely run around $1 million.

"(It's that expensive) because of how big of an area it is and because of all the campers here, they're like big deflectors, all those big boxes out there, to try and get that signal to the grounds," he said. "We're probably going to start looking at trying to phase that in over time."

Visitors to rosscountyfair.com who scroll down the home page will find another new feature, the opportunity to purchase fair tickets, weekly ride passes, grandstand event tickets and camping spots online in advance of fair week. Fair Board Treasurer Peggy Gray said a change will be noticed in daily admission procedures as well.

"We're going to have a new ticketing system where they'll have laptops and will print out tickets and then they'll scan them when (people) come in," she said. "It's just a new idea of how to keep attendance better than we did in the past."

Finally, visitors will see a few entertainment- and educational-related additions once they're through the gates. Glass blowing has been added for the first time at the bandstand as has some musical offerings from Neil Smith on his calliope. Jake Worthington, a runner-up on NBC's "The Voice," will headline Thursday's free bandstand entertainment options with an 8 p.m. performance, while featured evening acts the rest of the week will include The Wegians on Sunday, 7 Mile Bluegrass on Monday, the Majestic Theatre Musician's Workshop Variety Show on Wednesday, the Stephen Neal Band on Friday and a comedy night with Lori Graves and Friends Saturday.

Grandstand entertainment, meanwhile, will be a mix of the familiar — Tuesday's Junior Fair Night activities — and less familiar — the addition of the Micro Wrestling Federation Wednesday night. The grandstand also will host dirt drag racing the Monday night of fair week, a truck and tractor pull Thursday, autocross Friday and the demolition derby Saturday. The decision was made to drop motocross from the lineup because attendance had been lagging for motocross in recent years and with the growing popularity of Chillitown MX motocross racing at other times throughout the summer on the south end of the fairgrounds, Cosenza said it didn't make sense to keep offering it at the fair.

Admission prices will remain the same for this year's fair, at $25 for weekly wristbands and $5 for daily admission.