I know that I'm late on the news coming out of our old home in Michigan, but I just got the word that this recently concluded Michigan State Fair will likely be the last. At least if it's going to rely on corporate and state funding.
I understand the economics of it. The state budget has been devastated by the crash of the auto industry and it's tax base, and there aren't enough healthy corporations there, auto related or otherwise, to plunk down sponsorship money. But I don't think that's the biggest issue.
For many, many years, I've questioned why the state fair was left to fewer and fewer visitors down at the old crusty fairgrounds lot. What a dismal place for a state fair. Oh, it wasn't always that way, I'm sure. Maybe 50 or 60 years ago it was safe, clean and one could even imagine a smidgen of agriculture that may have existed in the area. But why it remained there in decline for so long I'll never understand.
Why is the Ohio State Fair not in Cleveland? Why is the Illinois State Fair not in Chicago?
Detroit, of all places, is not the right venue for the state fair. It has nothing to offer. Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Lansing, or even Traverse City all make more sense. Take the fair back closer to it's roots as an agricultural exposition. Make it a destination.
All throughout the summer there are a hundred Michigan towns that offer the same cheesy carnival attractions and smelly carnival workers, and most of those in much nicer venues if you really need it. No need to come to Detroit.
I've heard all the PR talk about the importance of taking some of these farming and husbandry lessons to the city kids, trying to give them an appreciation and a little knowledge about it, but the fact is that the big city kids and their families don't want it. The attendance numbers prove it, and that's why this fair will be no more. That's another thing the sponsors understand, even if they had the money to give.
It's too bad really; after 160 years. That's a long time. But the time for this fair, in this place, is long past.
1 comment:
Cultural diversity options for the 'motor city' continue to decline.
The time of the Fair to be in Detroit is over, done, finished.
Let it go.
Now Detroit has casinos and ball parks and mitch albom.
And such an enlightened electorate and city government.
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