Meet him at the fair
By Steve Herring
Published in News on September 6, 2015 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Wayne Regional Agricultural Fair Manager Eddie Pitzer stands in front of he recently completed open-sided shelter where livestock shows will be held during the fair.
DUDLEY -- Additional parking, new and brighter parking lot lights and a just-completed open-sided livestock building will greet visitors to the 67th annual Wayne Regional Agricultural Fair.
The fair is a little later this year -- Oct. 1 -- because of the Labor Day holiday falling later, fair Manager Eddie Pitzer said. It runs through Oct. 10.
Carnivals base their route schedule on Labor Day, he said.
"But next year we will be moving back up to the end of September and into the first of October," he said. "It works good for us to have a 10-day run. It gives us the opportunity for two weekends and most people come out on the weekends and enjoy the fun."
Advanced admission tickets and ride wristbands are already available online through noon Sept. 30.
The wristbands are normally $25, but cost $20 online.
Advance adult tickets are $5 online instead of $7 at the gate.
The tickets may be purchased by going to the fair's website, waynefair.com, and clicking on "buy tickets."
"If they buy that ticket online, then they can walk right up to the gate," Pitzer said. "They don't have to wait in line with the others. So it speeds it up.
"Also once the have that carnival wristband voucher, they go right to the information booth. They will scan it and give them their wristband right there. So it is a convenience thing as well as a discount."
For the $7 adult admission, people get all of the free entertainment, he said.
"(The fair) is one of those places where you get to see people that you don't see very often," Pitzer said. "People come and gather around the food court area and see old friends and have a good time."
But not everyone who comes to the fair is there to mix and mingle. Some of them are there for the competition.
"If you are interested in bringing in item to enter it into the fair, whether it is for the adults or the juniors, we will be taking entries in on Sept. 30 from 4 to 8 in the evening and on Thursday, Oct. 1, in the morning from 8 until 10." Pitzer said. "Then we will judge them Thursday afternoon and hopefully they will all be judged before the fair opens at 4. We welcome people to bring out something."
The fair is a big event that takes a lot of people to put on, and as always the fair is looking for new and different entertainment, Pitzer said.
"We are bringing in the Pork Chop Revue," he said. "It is a bodacious swine show. They don't sing. They waltz, do antics. It is just a little something different than we have ever had. They typically work off the West Coast and this is their first season working on the East Coast. We think it will be a little different and entertaining for the whole family. If nothing else, it has my curiosity up.
"We are bringing back Mike Bishop, the hypnotist. He was here two years ago, and we had great success with him. People enjoyed seeing his show. We have had a lot of requests for him so we decided to bring him back. Them we have some of our regulars like the Almost Amazing Rex and the clown. We are going to have bull riding on Monday and Tuesday nights (Oct. 5 and 6), a cheerleading contest (Oct. 7) and the demolition derby will be back on the last Saturday (Oct. 10). Hopefully, we have provided a good package for people to come and see the fair."
Powers Great American Midway will provide 48 rides including two new ones.
Carnivals are like fairs in that they have to add things and add to their operations, Pitzer said.
"The worst thing we can have is people come to the fair and say, 'That is the same thing I saw last year,'" Pitzer said. "So we are constantly looking at how we can change things up and make it different."
Pitzer joked that the new lights will make the parking lot look like a football field.
"We have several things going on this year, improvements," he said. "We like to every year continue to build on the fairgrounds. So our board of directors continues to invest in the fairgrounds, trying to make it better every year.
"In the past we have been renting a big tent to have our livestock shows in. This year we decided instead of renting a tent we would just go ahead and invest in a building and rather than paying rent on a tent make and investment in making payments on this building."
The Wayne County Livestock Development Corp., which owns the fairgrounds, decided to build the 60-by-100-foot pole barn where all of the livestock shows will be held, he said.
It was an approximately $50,000 project.
Bleachers will be placed on the north end of the building. The arena will be in middle and the animal pens at the south end.
The first show will be the Open Junior Market Hog Show on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 6 p.m.
"We will have a goat show on Friday night (Oct. 2) and lamb show on Saturday (Oct. 3) and the beef heifer show on Sunday (Oct. 4)," Pitzer said. "We will have kids coming from all over eastern North Carolina who will be participating in the shows. Last year I think we had close to 100 lambs that came in for Saturday for the show.
"So we are looking forward to it, and our entries seem to be coming in fairly steady. So we feel like we will have some good livestock shows again this year. Of course it is always good when you can have kids participating in events."
Other improvements include the new lights in the parking lot next to U.S. 117 .
"We have actually increased the intensity of the light out there so when you go out to your car after coming to the fair, it will be well lit and you will be able to see real well," Pitzer said. "It should provide a little sense of security out there having better lighting. Also by doing that we moved all of the poles to the outside -- got the poles out of the middle of the field and got rid of all of the overhead wires. So it is a little better-looking as far as the appearance of the fairgrounds."
That project also cost approximately $50,000.
The back parking lot has been expanded by clearing out some of the trees in the wooded area along the railroad tracks.
That work added about 300 parking spaces.
Work also is under way to make changes in the main exhibit hall.
"We are working to change how we display those items," Pitzer said. "We have done a lot of painting in there, building display cases -- really to put those exhibits when they come in and let them be where you can see them better. They are displayed so everybody can get a good look. Rather than just sitting it on a shelf we try to make it sort of jump out at you."
Long-range plans include how the fair will remodel and redesign the building, he said.
Some of the local groups are working on their food booths, too.
"There are a lot of little things that you do that people don't really notice," Pitzer said. "One of the things we try to remain conscious of is trying to make the fair customer friendly. When they come, we want them to have a good time and not have the problems of sitting in lines or waiting. But there is always that. It is part of going to the fair. But it is something we are always looking at as how we manage it, how we can make it a little better, a little faster in and out.
"Another thing we are doing is working with our local officials to make sure it is a safe environment. We have good support from the Sheriff's Office and Office of Emergency Services so that we have things in place so that we can address any situation."