Fairs aren’t all animals and games unfortunately…

Not many people out there really understand or appreciate what it really takes and how much work goes in to running a successful and exciting fair. Back in the days when I was a member of Springfest, I couldn’t believe how much work it actually took.

Permits and Licenses

Luckily for me, I was not very high up on the employee ladder and never really had to deal with any official paperwork involving permits and things of that nature, but I sure did work with the people that did. Now I understand that there is obviously going to be some work getting all of the permits and paperwork ready, but had no idea how difficult some things were to get.

The building and other inspectors that are in charge of making sure everything is up to code are nightmares to work with and please. One year I remember we had a building that looked like a farm come in for all of our animals and they were absolute hounds about the structure of the barn.

They did countless inspections over the coarse of a couple of weeks and 3 days before the fair, they decided that the roof on the barn was not up to code and had to be completely refinished before they would allow us to use it. I don’t know how much it had to have cost them to get the thing fixed in time but it was a nightmare to have to work around.