The Colusa County Fair starts tonight.
Normally, the Pioneer Review would have published pages of information for our readers by now…the entertainment lineup, schedule of events, special attractions, etc.
People used to be abuzz with excitement this time of year. People talked about the fair.
It wasn’t too many years ago that people would find themselves the recipient of a wooden token, good for a $1 off a corn dog or whatnot, if they were overheard spreading the word about a fair event in front of the dozens of people and business owners in the local community who were in on the shtick.
The more the 44th District Agricultural Association promoted the fair, the more people talked about it. The more people that talked about it, the more people participated.
Attendance at the fair was historically high, attracting up to 30,000 people over its four-day run. This year, 10,000 to 15,000 might attend – at best.
There was a time when the Colusa County Fair wasn’t just about carnival rides and funnel cake. It was about community and being the center of celebration and tradition.
Sadly, those days seem gone.
Today, county fairs are little more than business arrangements, nothing more – nothing less.
Local businesses give the fairgrounds a lot of money, and the staff, in turn, spend it. Oh, the money they bleed out of people goes to a good cause…a midway, entertainment, and an opportunity for kids to pad their college funds or purchase a car by selling market animals for more than they are worth. And, for a big cut of the profits, the fairgrounds will invite plenty of vendors who will offer ice cream and deep fried everything, the hallmarks of a good exposition.
After all, fairs are fairs. They’ve changed little over the years. If you don’t love or financially support them, then you obviously hate children…or so they tell you.
The Colusa County Fair will be a good event, I’m sure. But what we have lost is enthusiasm from the people involved to go the extra mile to incorporate activities that bind the community together.
As long as they outsource most of the venue and collect enough money to cover expenses, employee salaries, paid vacations, holidays, and pensions, then the state bureaucrats at the fairgrounds need only do the bare minimum. It doesn’t matter to them that the Colusa County Fair has lost sight of its mission, its values, and its purpose. It’s not “the most entertaining or friendly rural fairgrounds in the State of California.” It certainly does not “treat all they deal with fairly or with respect in an honest and open manner.” It does not “work as a team or strive to continuously improve what they do,” and it is not “the center for celebration of tradition, education, and business successes of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”
Those are just words written on a piece of paper in a policy manual few have bothered to read.
If you find my comments about the Colusa County Fair or its organizers disparaging, it is only because Pioneer Review Publisher Lloyd Green and I have beaten our heads against the wall trying to do our job as a newspaper to provide the community with information about the Colusa County Fair.
The Fair CEO has made it clear she will not cooperate…California public access laws be damned. It was the CEO’s lazy decision, on behalf of the fair board, to provide information only to members of the public who follow them on social media.
In that decision, the CEO denied information about the fair to the county’s only local newspaper (despite our multiple requests) and to all other media outlets within a 50-mile radius. They used to send it as a way to reward event sponsors through the promotion of the fair, as required by the 44th District Ag Association bylaws and policies.
Going an extra mile to get the word out is apparently too much work – and who wants to work nowadays, especially those who got paid not to put on events and expositions for two years during a pandemic?
While it was the fair CEO’s decision to only use social media, the information online is still pretty minimal – a slothful promotion effort at best. Apparently, the fair has a new carnival company, there will be cornhole, and it is going to have their first weenie dog races. The Fiddlin’ Brothers, who are their own promoters, will be there and more money was added to the destruction derby purse. That’s about all I saw online. If there is a schedule of events or a list of entertainers and sponsors anywhere, they must be hiding it for people with better computer skills than I.
I’m not saying the use of social media is not a tool one should have in their toolbox for helping get the word out about community events, but for most people, it’s like email on crack. You can’t possibly read or remember everything or you just scroll by the constant bombardment of information that clutters up your feed.
So, why make social media your only tool? People on social media who don’t go through life with a cell phone permanently attached to their hand only pick up a little bit of information here and there. Those who do go through life with a cell phone attached probably know everything there is to know about the fair – as well as everyone’s opinions about it – so they won’t even have to go. They can, and probably will, just stay home and watch the pageants and destruction derby live streamed on Facebook.
That’s the double edge sword of social media. The local businesses who sponsor events at the fair, or donate money to repair and maintain buildings, are no longer acknowledged by having their names printed in magazines, on posters, or in newspapers, and they are forced to face even fiercer challenges from companies who pay Silicon Valley the big bucks to promote their services and products to people who use their platforms.
After all, if you say Ford F-150 in Colusa, a listening Facebook or Instagram won’t direct you to Hoblit Motors. They show you ads for Downtown Ford in Sacramento. That’s how it works, folks.
And while there are still a few people, like me, who entered something in the fair this year in hope of keeping our fair traditions and values alive, I know saving those traditions is probably a losing battle. Participation will continue to decline. As they say, those who live by the sword, die by the sword…and social media is a hill this community and our local businesses are dying upon.
Honestly, if it wasn’t my job to cover some of the fair events, I, too, wouldn’t go to the fair at all this year and just stay home and watch the Miss Colusa County pageant online. I don’t have the excitement I once had for any of the events, and I have seen nothing in town that has inspired me to feel otherwise.
And as more people start to lose interest and motivation – and they will – then fairgrounds won’t be fit for anything but state property the governor is eying to erect tiny houses for homeless people.
So, I apologize to our readers who are not on social media – and I’ve heard from quite a few – that I could not inspire more enthusiasm for this year’s Colusa County Fair.
Apparently, enthusiasm is neither wanted nor needed; just your money.
So, I truly hope fair organizers rethink their unimaginative CEO’s decision not to promote the fair before the next time they ask businesses to just write a check instead of hosting or participating in fundraising and community-building activities like kissing a pig, bartending challenges, eating contests, local chef challenges, cooking demonstrations, and barbecue cook-offs, all of which disappeared after the carefully and unfairly orchestrated changing of the guard in 2017.
Community is what the Colusa County Fair is supposed to be about. Too bad it lost sight of that. ■
