Board reviews 2017 Great Northern Fair

Members of the Great Northern Fair board and fairgoers alike gave good reviews for this year’s fair this past weekend, despite some frustrations with Dreamland Amusement which provided this year’s carnival, people at the fair board meeting said Tuesday.

Fairboard member Scott Doney, who has been on the board for four years, said he has heard more positive comments about this year’s fair than he had in the past.

“I do believe we are headed in a positive direction both for the board, which means a lot to us because it is a lot of work, but to the community also,” Doney said.

Fairgrounds manager Dave Brewer said he handed out surveys to fairgoers for people to rank from one to 10 how they felt about the rides, with one being “outstanding” and 10 being the worst. He said from what he has seen so far, people who took the surveys ranked the rides a two, three or four.

Not all of the surveys have been returned, but he said the only complaint on the surveys related to the rides was there were two rides where the floor shifted and the carnival crew did not let people who wore sandals onto the two rides, though they had wristbands that served as an all-day pass for the fair.

Brewer said he later suggested Riley Cook, owner of Dreamland, put on the wristbands issued to fairgoers that they need to wear shoes and not sandals if they want to go on all the rides.

In all, 17 rides were at this year’s fair, Brewer said.

He said there was supposed to be 18 rides but one of them broke down.

Board members discussed Cook not opening and closing at the same hours each day.

Board member Tyler Smith asked if Cook was contractually required to open and close at specific times. Brewer said he wasn't, but that he wanted to sit down with Cook in November when he goes to the annual fair convention.

“I kind of told him, I sat right in his camper and I said, ‘Look, I can’t hardly tell the radio station or the newspaper what time you are going to be open if you are not consistently open.’ He’d change the time. He would tell me one thing and then he would do something else,” Brewer said.

Brewer said that, for the most part, Cook closed the carnival when he said he would, except during hours when there were few people on the grounds and he shut down about 11:30 p.m. Brewer said he thinks that only happened once or twice.

Dreamland has another year left in its contract with Hill County.

Smith said when the contract with Dreamland is up for renegotiation, or if they sign a new carnival company they will have to have specific hours that they open or close.

Board member Carla Vaughn said last year’s carnival closed early several times because it was slow. She added that she thinks regardless of the crowd size, the carnival should stay open for the agreed upon times.

Vaughn added that the number of rides and no exclusive on the food should also be included in a contract.

Brewer said another concern he has is Cook is quite adamant about dictating what he can do under the contract.

Brewer said that at some point, Cook told someone they couldn’t sell a food product because Cook said he was selling it, but the fair does not get any share of money from Cook’s concessions.

The two things the contract between the Great Northern Fair and Cook said only he could sell was cotton candy, caramel apples or sliced caramel apples.

Brewer said in his survey many people told him they thought Cook’s workers were friendly. However, Brewer added, some carnival workers were smoking in the bathrooms and left “crap” all over the midway, He said his crews had to clean that up.

Carnival workers also had dogs on the campgrounds and they weren’t cleaned up after either, Brewer said.

This year’s free entertainment were inflatable objects provided by the Inflatable Fun Zone out of Bozeman.

Brewer said he was opposed to the choice of free entertainment. Though he said a lot of children and families did like it, but whenever the wind came up it would close down, and then all the kids would go over and ride the rides.

“So it’s almost like we paid somebody to compete against ourselves that is the way I saw it,” Brewer said.

Board Member Chelby Gooch disagreed,

She said all she heard was compliments about the inflatables because all the people with little kids who couldn’t get on the rides were able to take the small children to the inflatables for a while while the bigger children were on the rides.

“I honestly don’t think we competed with ourselves, I think it was a good idea,” Gooch said.