Old, new draw State Fair crowd
Rides fly, food goes down day after off-average attendance
After a rainy Saturday morning, attendees of the Arkansas State Fair and Livestock Show took to exploring new rides and foods and revisiting old favorites.
The weather turned hot and humid just as the gates opened at 11 a.m., and the State Fairgrounds and Ferris wheels soon started to fill with people readying their cattle for show and others looking for fried food, lemonade and a thrill ride.
Fair manager Ralph Shoptaw said he expected attendance to reach 75,000 to 80,000 people for an average first-Saturday crowd after Friday’s crowd fell short. Shoptaw said he expected Saturday’s live band, 38 Special, to draw a good-sized crowd.
Friday’s attendance was 38,336, about 6,000 fewer fairgoers than the fair’s first Friday in 2011, Shoptaw said.
“That’s still pretty good numbers,” he said.
Shoptaw said that a forecast of mostly warm and dry weather for the rest of the fair week seems to bode well for attendance.
Rain spoiled the first Friday of the fair last year, pushing attendance to just 11,000 people. The next day, the fair set a single-day attendance record of nearly 90,000 people.
This year, the fair added 12 new rides, including the highly touted Vertigo — a 100-foot tall contraption that swings riders around as it moves up and down.
The ride lasts little more than a minute and takes its ascent and descent slowly.
Riders said that it was fun but that it didn’t last long enough.
“It’s a lot better than the other swings,” said 20-yearold Joseph Hollinger, who
attended the fair with his family.
“It didn’t last very long, though,” he said. His little brother, Brandon, agreed. “But it was fun,” he said. Shoptaw said he met with the ride inspectors and believes that this year’s ride equipment is the best he’s seen in his nine years at the fair.
Also new is the Avalanche, where riders sit on two long rows of seats stacked on top of each other and are swung up and down, rather than out to the side.
“I liked the spinning,” said 15-year-old Tia Ciok of Pine Bluff. For Ciok, the rotation made the ride different.
Also new are Hog Wild, Spider, Hofbrau House, Banana Squadron, Rockin’ Tug, Nemo, Tea Cups, Groovy Bus, Dizzy Dragon and Zero Gravity, where riders hang on to the side of a barrel-style platform that spins and tilts them around.
Not necessarily dizzying, riders said, but it made their bodies feel very light.
Old favorites like the Nemv esis 360 continued to attract lots of riders, usually young people ready to be swung upside down and back and forth dozens of feet in the air.
Besides the rides, Shoptaw said the fair had a good array of concession stands and more than 4,000 entries in the Arts and Crafts Building, the most ever.
Saturday morning also featured livestock showings, the Little Mister and Miss Pageant and the Mrs. Arkansas State Fair Pageant.
The State Fair, on grounds at 2600 Howard St. in Little Rock, runs through next Sunday.