The Fair sent out an email press release today announcing a banner year in sponsorship with nearly $2 million in sales. As we pointed out in an earlier post (Counting on Success, Sep. 5), sponsors—you know, Chevrolet, Gianelli, Toyota, Budweiser, Time Warner and all of those– recognize the benefits of seeing attendance approach a million visitors, so this further validates promotions and improvements that boosted 12-day numbers to 965,147 fun seekers. Higher attendance equals more sponsorship dollars.
It also gets us thinking about the proposed amphitheater and how moving concerts from the Grandstand to the lakeside would impact sponsor dollars coming into the Fair. Logically, Grandstand sponsorship would go down. Would other sponsors spend some of their money at the new venue and less on the grounds? As you know if you’ve been keeping up with State Fair Hound, we think it would reduce Fair attendance. Would that hurt sponsor intake? We don’t know the answers, but the questions need to be asked.
Incidentally, the release also said, “Four national brands and several regional brands that have never participated in the Fair have already begun discussions about participating in 2015.” More great news.
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