There were a few ticket scammers, there was a lot of hot, smoky weather and the experimental new location of the live music didn't quite work out, but other than that the Western Montana Fair was a pretty big hit this year, according to fairgrounds events and operations manager Billie Brown.
Arena ticket sales were up, food sales smashed the old record, the flat track motorcycle racing was popular and there were no major injuries or accidents.
"People can eat together, cheer together, discover new organizations or culture and listen to music in spaces they are not otherwise able to do," Brown said.
About 110,000 people attended the fair this year, she said. She and her team had been expecting about 150,000 because of the new two-weekend format this year, which meant more days of the fair than years past.
"We hit about 70% of our goal, but we're also looking at the fact that it was one of the hottest fairs ever. It was the hottest one I've ever been through," she said. "It was the first year we've ever gone without rain. We did a TikTok (hoping for no rain), and now that we realize how powerful we are we need to be a little more specific. We totally did ourselves in."
The fair uses anonymized cellphone analytics to track cellphones as they cross a boundary line to determine attendance. The Rocky Mountain Association of Fairs gets a group discount from a company called Placer.ai, and Brown can see attendance of other fairs in Montana that way. She notes that other fairs are down 15%-20% in attendance this year.
She said the analytics can also show her where crowds gather and where, for example, a new four-way stop needs to be put in for extra safety. Nobody's personal data is attached to what the company sends out, she said.
There are several factors, including hot weather, high costs of living and the death of a teen on a carnival ride in Butte that may have kept people away this year. Attendance at the carnival was down 4.6% this year.
But still, 110,000 people came over the eight days of the fair and pumped quite a bit of money into the local economy, local nonprofits and vendors at the event.
Food vendor gross sales were $1,057,647.
"I thought it was going to be the carnival that topped $1 million for the first time, but turns out it was food sales," Brown said. "Our job isn't simply to generate revenue, it's also to help local businesses and local nonprofit groups. For many of them, it's their one and only shot at raising funds for the year. So crossing the million-dollar mark with food sales is great."
Arena tickets saw about 1,000 more attendees than previous years and there was a 13% revenue increase for those events.
"The rodeo was particularly encouraging," Brown said. "And the Lords of Dirt (flat track motorcycle racing) is a big success for us. We think that we are one of the largest live audiences for flat track motorcycle racing in the country."
One problem, she said, was ticket scammers.
"We need to educate people about ticket resellers," she said.
Quite a bit of people found "discounted" tickets on second-hand market sites online, but it turned out they were fake tickets.
"You see their face, they look so crushed," Brown said. "People need to be sure they're buying from the venue. Don't buy from resellers."
The scammers also buy advertising online, she said, which pushes the legitimate ads from the fairgrounds lower down on search results. And then so many fake tickets are being offered that it shows people that events are sold out even when they're not.
Another kink to get worked out was the location of the live music this year. They experimented with having the stage in the carnival area, with the mountains as a backdrop, but attendance was down.
"Live music was the place where we had the most room for improvement," Brown said. "We're going to move it back (to where it was previous years, closer to the grandstands).
The 4-H livestock sales hit about $944,653 in animal sales, which is up from the $830,000 last year.
Home ReSource, a local nonprofit that organizes a Green Team to keep recyclables and compostable material out of the landfill, announced that they diverted 140,000 pounds of waste this year. That includes about 120,000 pounds of compostable material, which is twice the amount from last year.
"This is a huge accomplishment for the fair and for our community," said Mike Lessard, program director at Home ReSource. "Diverting just over 120,000 pounds of compost is a massive increase over last year, and it shows what is possible when we combine solid planning, committed volunteers, and thousands of fairgoers making the right choice at the bin. We're incredibly proud to help the Western Montana Fair reach these new zero-waste milestones."
They got more vendors to serve food and drinks in 100% compostable containers this year, he noted. They also had about 100 volunteers, along with Home ReSource staff, putting in more than 800 hours of work from morning until night.
"We couldn't do this without the incredible people who volunteer their time to make the fair more sustainable," said Kelli Hess, executive director of Home ReSource. "We are especially grateful to our dedicated Home ReSource Board members who donned Green Team aprons to lend a hand. We are also grateful to the Missoula Fairgrounds team for prioritizing sustainability in its event planning and to the record number of vendors who partnered with us to make waste diversion possible. Home ReSource is proud to lead the behind-the-scenes coordination, but these results belong to the whole community."