A Fair Affair
I have just returned from the opening day of the 150th Oregon State Fair.
After working for the State Fair for several years, I feel a loyalty to the fair. That being said, it was easy to see that it was coming on hard times. Lower attendance, harder time bringing people in, etc. This year has shaken that all up.
For the first time in my LIFE, they rearranged the entire fair. All the marketing that was in the Columbia Building was moved to the Jackman Long Building, and all the arts and crafts that were there were moved to the Columbia Building. The photo/painting contests were moved to the previously inaccessable fine arts buildings. The artisans were scattered to the four winds and left to land where they may. By rearranging they made the dog area way better (for the first time I got to go right up to the pool side as a dog warmed up with diving for the thingies). They also managed to fit in three extra areas for stage shows and music, and all the concerts are now free for general seating and a miniscule fee for the VIP treatment.
I took my mom a little after opening. We parked in the normal lot, hiked in. Went to the anime booth for my shortest visit yet (Totoro wall scroll for me, minions pin for mom), then visited livestock, dog area, 4-H, petting zoo, milk shakes, hypnotist show, veterans uniform exhibit, and then went home. Had a few hours resting and then went back before sunset. On our second visit we were much more musically inclined.
Our first musical act was the free Everclear contest... I'm going to use crowd surfing as an analogy. If you're going to throw yourself at the audience, be sure they'll catch you. The same goes for them singing parts of your song... Then again, the lead singer kept pulling the microphone out of audible distance for everything so all the songs cut out. We wandered away and found a VERY VERY talented group performing in a new stage area in the food court. They did some covers as good as the original artists, especially regarding the keyboard. It's the first show I've been to that someone did that whole keyboard thing, ended with the foot on the keys, and it still sounded great. This ended with a standing ovation from most of the audience, as well it should have.
From there we saw the art exhibits (A massive, intricate lego tree got best of division, but not first place? How does that work?) and wedding cakes (Minion cake included). We got info on where the paintings and photography were and went through it in detail. It was quite nice, and I was relieved after a few years of getting squished into smaller and smaller venues, it finally got to stretch back out to an appropriate size. Leaving that building, we sat down for another live performance by some more exquisitely talented people.
My mom was in high heaven listening to live music and it was good enough for me to bounce my foot, but I was especially pleased that it rained a teency weency bit while we listened. Very refreshing to have the post-sunset air, a touch of rain, just very nice. It also illustrates how very rare it is for me to have an entire day of anything... I work in halves. When I have a day free, I don't usually have a night free and vice versa. This vacation has been rather restorative. I'm quite pleased by that, and I still have one day left! But I got off track.
Leaving the last musician, we took the chair lifts back to the orange gate. Getting on with a blind woman was quite easy, but getting off was a bit awkward. The guy in charge of the speed didn't remember to slow down or stop so I had three false get ups and my mom just sort of hung out until they got it right. But we wandered out finally and vacated the second time.
I was feeling a bit funky for the first visit, but the second visit was nice. I'm glad they were able to do something different with it this year and actually make things better... I also wished I had been in better health at the start. Not sure what was wrong with me, my back mostly... Well, that and the fact that my mom wants to see everything in a given area, but the way she grids it out resembles a spirograph artwork so it's rather inefficient and you still end up missing things. But the most important thing was that she had a lot of fun, thus concluding her birth-week festivities.