Every year this fair comes and goes and we race and don't go. We hear about it from many people around us. They recommend that we go, but we don't. So, when I heard from a friend when it was coming and that it starts on a Thursday and was cheaper I decided we'd check it out.
Don't get me wrong. I love fairs. I grew up with a big one in my area. People drove hours to come. The problem I see with fairs is that they are overpriced. I find it hard to believe that families are OK with spending up to $70 for a family of four to go on three rides, and that doesn't include the admission ($7/per person over twelve). To top it off, if your child is too small to ride a ride on their own the parent has to pay to ride even if they didn't want to ride in the first place. Also, the rides are so short. The roller coaster ride at the top went around two or three times.
In today's hard times I'm surprised to see how many people go to fairs. Everything is so much more expensive and people are making so much less. The family experience still comes first I suppose. Maybe that is why people still go. Is it a family experience when the kids go on a few rides and the parents give up their rides so the kids can have more? I think our definition of family experience is changing.
Games were $5 or $10 a try and you were guarantied a great plastic, blow-up prize or small stuffed toy made from low quality petroleum products. Are they serious!? After all of the other expenses and purchasing ice cream to cool off all of our pocket cash was gone.
Being a local event, families meet up with those other families they haven't seen in a while. This is a homeschool family that we love to hang around. They gave the kids a hands on experience with their farm animals.
It's a fun and educational experience. That is what I tell myself when I think about the fact that we could have gone to a zoo or a small amusement park for the same price and we'd have unlimited access to rides and animals.
From my memory of fairs this fair was very small. I was expecting something a bit bigger. We weren't there all that long because there really wasn't that much to do or see. It was around the same price as the fair I grew up going to less the parking fee and that fair could be an all day event. We did enjoy ourselves, but I just wonder how much longer families will put up with such high prices? Also I ask myself, how many families out there can never go to a fair because the cost of it is beyond their budget?
Here Zoe's friend is showing her the guinea pigs that she entered.
I'm glad my kids had this experience, but I don't think we'll go to a fair every year. What ever happened to the good old days where everyone could afford to go to the fair, have fun there all day, and it was a community event that nobody missed?
2 comments:
you bring up some interesting points that i am sure many think of but don't articulate. i hear you on the cost, it's nuts. such a money grab and should be more accessible as an 'old-fashioned' community event. our fair is coming up this weekend and i am just becoming aware of the costs involved just to get in... i'm really hoping that we can get a pass for the whole weekend and not just one day and that we can spend lots of time there as there will be so much to do. i'll let you know our observations... but, at least for you, the kids were there, they will remember and they have had time as a family amongst their community members.... will you go back next year?
If anything it makes me appreciate the larger fair that takes us all day to go through. I think next year if we go we'll drive out of our way to go to that fair. It's still around the same prices but at least it's more for our money.
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