The Party's Over

Before the tropical heat moved in, there were problems the first
weekend when the attendance record for the first Saturday was shattered,
the 115,324 visitors creating massive traffic jams. The following day
there were issues from another source as tween darling Justin Bieber
postponed his sold-out concert due to an unspecified illness. Some
Bieber fans were infuriated when Fair administration declared they
wouldn’t honor the concert tickets sold months earlier for fans who
wanted to enter the grounds on the original date. Those who came from a
long distance, some of whom had stayed in nearby hotels, reportedly
found support from mutinous gate staff, who rightly let many of them in
anyway. 

Fair director Dan O’Hara and company must be used to complaints by
now as they have struggled from the beginning in treating people well
and creating good will. Once again this year, media covering the Fair
including, but by no means limited to, Syracuse New Times staff,
wrestled to work around disorganization and inefficiency on the part of a
Fair administration that continued a pattern of treatment marked by
confusion, indifference and hostility. It doesn’t have to be that way
and never was before O’Hara. 

Big guns: When Justin Bieber finally hit town, the tween bunch was ready to greet

him (left) and the children below were entertained in a different way during this military muster. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTOS

Reporters and Bieber rooters weren’t the only ones with a grievance
this year as several vendors with Fair seniority were relocated,
something that often affects their profits from serving habituated Fair
customers. Lines were noticeably shorter than in previous years for the
longtime favorite steak and chicken vendor Butcher Boys after Fair brass
moved them from their traditional spot on Restaurant Row. Although
manger Tara Christensen cited the hot weather as a factor, the new
location sure didn’t help. 

“We’re not in love with the location,” Christensen confessed. “But
we’d like it a lot better if they didn’t have the gyro stand two doors
down from us. We’re not as busy as we have been, but it’s also been five
days of terrible heat. A lot of people walked around for a while trying
to find us. We were a little disappointed, but we expected to be a lot
disappointed.”

Another relocated vendor, Bob Hamley, who peddles lemonade, roses and
popcorn, said business wasn’t bad in his new spot between the Dairy
Building and the International Pavilion. Hamley reported that he got his
revenge when he got the attention of Gov. David Paterson and sold him
cold drinks for his staff. “I told him, ‘I’m going to charge you full
price, governor,’” Hamley jabbed. “I said, ‘I’ve got to pay my taxes.’”  

Other vendors seemed to have disappeared, notably Patrician’s Bakery
and the Limp Lizard, with patrons left to ponder the story behind those
absences. On the positive side, the large food stand formerly known as
Tony’s looked great as Danny D’s, housed in a new structure. 

More changes emerged around the sale of New York wines, this time
mostly positive. The new wine tent, a few feet from the old one, was
smaller but more wine was available on the grounds as several food
stands were licensed for sale. With the stunning makeover of the
International Pavilion, the wine bar was another option, standing among
tiled walls, wood pillars, tablecloths and flowers in the grounds’
classiest locale.

Patio seating areas and fences added to Chevy Court were beautiful,
but that venue was overwhelmed by fans anyway, especially at Lady
Antebellum’s Sept. 1 appearance. There’s still much work to be done to
make concerts there worth the trouble. They can start with more video
screen space, one on each side or a huge one directly over the stage. 

Free entertainment continued to be a great draw as the Extreme Canine
Triathlon and the Raptor Project encored to overflow crowds and Wild
About Monkeys debuted as the best of the new animal acts, both funny and
educational. If anyone saw the advertised appearance of the Irish
Choppers, they’re one up on us. 

The human slingshot known as the Ejection Seat didn’t seem very busy,
perhaps due to the $25-per-rider charge, while the price on the
Eurobubbles inexplicably went up to from $6 to $8 for eight minutes
rolling across a pool in a giant hamster ball. The Smart Cart, a
backpack on wheels, made a splash as a new item sold in the Center of
Progress Building.

Although workers made substantial progress during the Fair on
construction of a new Iroquois Longhouse, it was still not complete by
Labor Day. It’s something Fairgoers can look forward to next year. 

With completion of a very successful Fair, staff can now step back,
lift a glass of Finger Lakes wine in celebration and take a rest. Then
it’s back to work with plenty left to improve, expand and freshen. They
can start with traffic and parking. There are some legitimate
limitations with parking accommodations and feeder roadways, but the
Fair could do a better job getting people off the roads and into lots by
changing patterns and using more efficient staffing. And it’s past time
to put engineers to work figuring out how to add entrances and exits.
The massive upper lot between Interstate 690 East and State Fair
Boulevard, for instance, requires thousands of cars to use a single lane
exit, creating an unmanageable bottleneck. 

With a new governor being sworn in with the coming of the new year,
speculation has already begun on what that means for the tenure of State
Fair director Dan O’Hara. If a Republican is elected, he’s gone, but
the polls show Democrat Andrew Cuomo with a big head start. If Cuomo
does move up from attorney general, he could retain O’Hara. 

The last Cuomo to serve as governor, the AG’s father Mario, conducted
a search before hiring an experienced fair professional, Texan Wayne
Gallagher, in 1989. So this could turn into a case of like father, like
son, especially if the younger Cuomo wants to start with a clean slate
instead of a director who is widely mistrusted and often disliked by
everyone from labor unions and vendors to the media and many dedicated
fairgoers.