Fair Game

Research has confirmed what seems logical. New Yorkers tend to visit the nearest of the two big fairs with competition for patrons hottest in the border areas west of Rochester and in the Finger Lakes where Empire State residents may choose to travel east or west, or possibly both, for their annual big expo.

“We do a visitors survey during the Fair,” reports State Fair public relations director Frederic Pierce. “What that shows us is that about 40 percent of our visitors come from Syracuse and the immediate surrounding area and 60 come from outside. We’ve been marketing in areas outside and we’ve been successful in doing that. Around the Finger Lakes and the Oswego area—outer Central New York—we do really well. Once we get beyond that, like Buffalo, it’s a small percentage, relatively.”   

Conversely, Buffalo-area residents are the strongest segment at the Erie County Fair. “About 80 percent of our guests come from the Western New York area, Jamestown to Olean,” says Lou Ann Delaney, director of marketing and public relations for the Erie County Fair. “Rochester we find is somewhat divided between the New York State Fair and the Erie County Fair. We get a lot of guests from Canada and we take Canadian money at par. We do market up there quite a bit. With the Canadian money taken at par, it’s a real incentive, much more affordable than going up to Toronto’s fair.”

A 2009 visit to the Erie County Fair, which boasts on its website that it’s “the largest independent county fair in North America,” revealed many similarities to the State Fair, the most evident being a midway packed with rides and games of chance provided by the James E. Strates Shows. Both feature such crowd-pleasers as the Giant Wheel, the King’s Castle funhouse and the Top Spin at the top of the midway and many other classic favorites and recent additions throughout.

“It’s very similar,” acknowledges manager John Strates, grandson of his company’s founder. “It’s a little larger here {at the State Fair}. There’s a few more vendors, a few more rides.” 

Another similarity is the national entertainment lineup that last year included several acts that have played the State Fair, including country duos Brooks and Dunn and Montgomery Gentry. Some performers actually make a stop in Hamburg before cruising down the Thruway to play in Geddes as country neophyte Jake Owens did last year. Concert seating at the Erie County Fair faces a racetrack as it does at the State Fair.

Logically, the most likely motivating factor that could draw visitors from longer distances would be the attraction of national entertainers who may not be playing local stages. For instance, this year The Four Tops and Jason Aldean are playing the Erie County Fair, but not the State Fair. Meanwhile Western New Yorkers who are fans of Rihanna or Lady Antebellum would have to leave home to see those shows, when they play at the Empire Expo Center.

The most visible difference between the two fairs is the infrastructures of the venues. Visitors to the State Fair can’t help but notice the town square look of the Chevrolet Court area, with stately buildings surrounding the courtyard, and the State Parks area. Erie, in contrast, contains many smaller structures, most with a plainer look. The most striking building on the Hamburg grounds is the raceway casino that dominates one side of the grounds.

While New Yorkers debate the addition of a gambling facility on the Geddes fairgrounds, the Erie County Fairgrounds have invested in an expansion of theirs. “What makes our fair different is we’ve got a casino on our grounds,” says Delaney. “We’re opening up a brand new casino facility during the fair this year so folks will have a chance to take a look at it. It’s a new layout, new restaurants. It’s attached to the event center, so we’ll be able to partner with some of the different consumer shows that take place in the event center. People can go over from the event center to have dinner, play some slots and go home a winner.”

Fair Thee Well

Overall the Erie fair’s look, while less glamorous than the State Fair, has its own charm. In Hamburg, the fairgrounds border a residential neighborhood with houses right across the street from the fair’s fence. Several neighbors turn their lawns into parking lots to make a few bucks during the mid-August event. The main entrance features a spectacular antique wrought-iron front gate. As patrons push through the turnstiles, electronic scanners read their tickets and chime their acceptance. 

Numerous small, grassy areas called parks, some with picnic grounds or gazebos, give the grounds a lovely, green look. “We did reduce the number of vendors this year by almost 10 percent to open the parks up even more,” Delaney explains. “That’s something that our board of directors is very committed to.” Many of the vendors and family acts that have played the State Fair—the Sea Lion Splash, the Marcan Tigers of India, duck and pig races—also stop off in Hamburg, where some of them are staged at the foot of a grassy slope that affords a comfortable place to sit for viewing.

Fair patrons get a glimpse of livestock barns through the chain link fence. “We’ve just built a 72,000-square-foot livestock and equine arena that will make its debut at this year’s fair,” Delaney says. “We’ve upgraded a lot of the facilities and the layout is going to be somewhat different this year.” Wildlife, hunting and fishing also feature prominently at Erie, which boasts a conservation building with pens of pheasants, a Trout Unlimited exhibit, a display from the Audubon Society and a boating and fishing center. 

Any fair has to lavish visitors with tempting, delicious foods and Erie is no exception, matching the State Fair with curly fries, hot dogs, fried dough and ice cream. While a new visitor may expect such renowned Buffalo-area dishes as chicken wings and beef on weck to dominate the culinary landscape, food choices are more varied and hot wings not nearly as common as might be expected. On the other hand, State Fair regulars would likely miss their pizza fritte and certainly notice the paucity of sausage sandwiches. Most food operations are housed in tents or trailers, as the grounds have fewer permanent stands like the sheds along Restaurant Row at the State Fair.

There are also some different menu choices like one stand that features coconut shrimp-on-a-stick with marmalade sauce and Maryland-style crab cakes. The Grape Guy offers concord grape pie and grape soda while Captain Mike’s seafood serves up fresh clams and lobster next to a birch beer stand. One restaurant that would likely be well-received in Syracuse is the Food Tailor Gourmet Brick Oven Pizza, where diners can custom order pies with a variety of toppings, including chicken, broccoli, alfredo style and tomato-basil.

Food vendors who stop at both fairs report a noticeable difference in their volume of business. “This fair is a lot stronger for us, business-wise,” declares Tara Christensen of Rhinebeck, manager of Butcher Boys, a business that has been serving steak sandwiches at both fairs for about 30 years. “I don’t necessarily know why that is. I think this {State} Fair, they let campers stay here to vacation and families come for the whole week and set up their campers and kind of hang out. At Erie County, it’s a day spot for people to visit. We’ve always done exceptionally well with our London broil here. There’s beer every other stand and it tends to go well with London broil.” 

Other vendors, like the Utter Delights ice cream trailers, have had the opposite experience, serving more customers and garnering higher profits in Hamburg. “The attendance seems to be like the same, but we always do very well out there,” says Utter Delights co-owner Linda Thomas. “This fairgrounds, the acreage is bigger. They have more parking. There are tons of vendors. They pretty much let anybody in if they have the space, whereas in Erie County, I think they limit the space. Just because you apply, you don’t necessarily get in.”

Thomas and husband Doug anchor a family frozen treats business that sells cones, shakes, sundaes, slushies and beverages from trailers with faux wood siding and blue roofs. She contends that there’s a simple explanation for Erie being a more profitable venture for Utter Delights than the State Fair: competition. “There’s the big Dairy Building,” Thomas points out. “It’s right there. How can you compete with that?”

Full-price admission is $10 at both fairs, but one special deal at Erie outdoes the State Fair. Anyone who arrives at the gates before 11 a.m. on a weekday can get a half-price ticket. “We’re an independent fair,” Delaney notes. “So we don’t rely on any government funding. We’re our own boss and in control of our own destiny. So we don’t run into budget cutbacks or government cutbacks.” 

Even if many Western New Yorkers haven’t made it to the State Fair, some who did came away with a positive impression. Shannon Malik, a SUNY Cortland student, traveled up Route 81 in 2008 to take in the Expo. “I went last year with some friends from school,’ she says. “It was so hot, we didn’t stay long. The State Fair is a lot bigger. The food was good and we loved the wine section. They had Red Cat slushies. I would probably go back “

Wine drinkers like Malik can enjoy their favorite beverage at the Erie Fair, but there are restrictions not found at the State Fair. “We have a New York state wine village,” Delaney explains, “but don’t allow guests to walk around while consuming wine or beer. That’s something that differentiates us from the State Fair. We’ve found that for us it makes for a very safe and family-friendly midway. Families are who we really cater to. We were voted the most family-friendly event in Western New York, according to Buffalo Spree magazine.”

Like the State Fair, visitors can ride a tram past such Erie County Fair staples as a building displaying fine arts and craftwork, a grassy, tree-shaded Iroquois Village with huts, craft vendors, a totem pole and dugout canoe, the familiar airbrushed T-shirt trailer, I Got It game stand, California Redwood Log House and a large marketplace building selling satellite television, smart mops, toe rings, leather goods, mobility scooters, Kitchen Maid Fudge and the ubiquitous chamois. Children’s favorites abound from a three-car historic train with wooden kids train nearby, to a small family entertainment stage complex featuring acrobats, a magician and a clown show, to a North Pole Gift Shop and Santa’s reindeer barn with live reindeer in pens. 

The Erie Fair puts a lot of emphasis on local flavor and personality, represented in the Orchard Park Antique Mall; the Historical Building with cubicles from such towns as Hamburg, Clarence and Amherst; the Erie County Fair cable car that is a restored San Francisco trolley; and a parade of neighboring fire departments. “At the Erie County Fair, they keep the scope of their farm activities and their cultural activities a little smaller,” says Baldwinsville resident and Buffalo native Tad Fundalinski. “Although it’s a pretty good fair. It’s a big thing out there. People make a big deal about attending. They have their traditions they do every year. It’s that whole thing about going on the midway and having that cultural experience. It’s essentially just a smaller version of the New York State Fair.”

Although it may be smaller, the Erie County Fair has certainly established itself as a major-league annual event. “They’re the biggest county fair in the state and one of the biggest festival-type events in the country,” Pierce affirms. “The way we look at it is they’re a county fair whose focus is primarily Western New York. We’re more focused on what we’re doing. We’re a state fair and we try to have a statewide approach to things. We focus on what we’re doing, which is successful for us. They do what they do, which is successful for them. I think it’s great that people have both of them. Each of them promote the economy, promote local businesses, promote agriculture.”

Anyone walking through the State Fair this year looking for eye-popping improvements or blockbuster new attractions is going to be disappointed. More than usual, the 164th State Fair resembles its predecessor with a few exceptions. New construction includes another new food stand. This year it’s Danny D's Fine Food, a popular stop for diners hungry for homemade clam chowder. It’s also one of the larger eating establishments on the grounds and the first permanent structure along Restaurant Row near the Coliseum. Another change in name means Basilio's of sausage fame is now called Paul Basilio's State Fair Sausage. In an effort to ease congestion at Chevrolet Court concerts, there are new picnic areas on both sides, one in front of the colonnade and the other in front of the Center of Progress Building. Both consist of tables with umbrellas for shade, surrounded by some classy masonry. Vendors have been moved out to create a more open look. Only the most sharp-eyed visitor is likely to notice the new roof on the Youth Building, but maintaining the handsome and historic architecture of buildings on the grounds is essential to the Fair’s long-term health. Let’s hope refurbishment of the glorious entrance to the Horticulture Building will be next.New entertainment is almost exclusively aimed at children with three new animal acts on the bill. Wild About Monkeys features performing baboons and other primates in the Adventure Zone, behind the Horticulture Building. Nearby, the Elephant and Tiger Encounter stars 300-pound Bengal tigers and African elephants. The Wild World of Animals offers a close-up look at alligators, snakes, huge insects, kangaroos, monkeys and big cats on stage in the Youth Activity Center near the Youth Building. 

The most unique of the new attractions is Eurobubbles, where kids are actually enclosed within a transparent ball that rolls across the surface of a pool in the Adventure Zone.

Motorcycle enthusiasts will want to visit the colonnade area, where the Irish Choppers workshop will be constructing a custom-made cycle. Just a few steps away, music, dancing, storytelling and ventriloquism will be presented on a new stage overlooking Chevy Court.

An Iroquois longhouse, a living history treasure absent from the past three Fairs, was under construction at the entrance to the Iroquois Village and may be finished in time to welcome visitors this year. A crew of Tuscarora workers sent by the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force had completed the tree-branch frame by Monday and was covering it with bark siding. Sunday’s relentless rain put the team behind schedule, so completion in time for the Fair is uncertain. The original longhouse debuted at the 2000 Fair and was a popular attraction until it collapsed in a storm after the 2006 Fair.