Changing times for fair
Four-day event attempts to pivot to reflect tech industry while keeping its core alive
SAN JOSE — Amid the usual livestock, carnival games and cotton candy at the Santa Clara County Fair were signs that the long-struggling tradition, now in its 72nd year, is facing changing times.
Jacob Peacock, a 17-year-old Campbell resident, was there with his black steer Rex as part of the last Future Farmers of America chapter in Silicon Valley.
Trevor Salom, also 17, was there with other students from San Jose’s Bellarmine College Preparatory to test out a robot, which will compete among the contraptions of more than 30 local teams at the fair this weekend.
They were all there to showcase what the county produces — and that’s what a fair should
do, said fair manager Richard Thomas. The tech industry has transformed Silicon Valley, and the county fair is trying to pivot to reflect that while keeping its core alive.
“This is really a multiyear project,” Thomas said. “We’re aiming to create an event that represents everyone who lives here.”
The four-day fair kicked off Thursday with the theme “Full S.T.E.A.M. Ahead,” an acronym that nods to both tech and the county’s farming heritage. “STEAM,” a play on the more common phrase “STEM,” stands for science, technology, engineering, art/ agriculture and math.
“We wanted a theme that incorporates where the valley is going and where Santa Clara County is headed, while also looking back to its roots,” Thomas said.
The theme is part of the fair’s efforts to reinvigorate the longstanding institution. Fair attendance dropped steadily until 2007, when an uptick in visitors couldn’t prevent the event from losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The county stopped funding the fair the year after, causing 2008’s event to downsize drastically to a “youth fair” with kids’ livestock displays and only one food vendor.
“The public wasn’t crazy about some of the changes we had to make,” said Delana Romero, executive director. The fair stopped putting on fireworks and no longer draws the same bigname entertainment, she said. Previous music greats who have passed through the fair include Tim McGraw and NSYNC.
This year’s festivities still fall short of the fair in its 1970s heyday, when it welcomed more than 250,000 visitors and stretched to multiple weeks. Still, Thomas said that attendance has increased over the last four years. With 35,000 attendees expected over four days this year — slightly up from 30,000 last year and 25,000 in 2010 — the Santa Clara County Fair is in the midst of a modest comeback.
Thomas attributed this partly to an “aggressive program” promoting the fair to schoolchildren, now in its third year. Admission is free for kindergarten through sixth-grade students throughout the county. The job of one fair staff member focuses on outreach to teachers and district staff who can get tickets into kids’ hands at the end of the school year.
Other county fairs have modernized in order to draw crowds in the 21st century. The nine-day San Mateo County Fair, which still boasts upward of 120,000 visitors per year, has embraced a more contemporary vibe with text-messaging competitions, science expos and the motto, “Where Tradition Meets Innovation.”
The Santa Clara County Fair has made similar attempts to shift gears with the rest of Silicon Valley. Last year’s theme, “Share With the Fair,” encouraged visitors to spread their activities on social media. And this year, the fair caught on to the “Pokémon Go” augmented-reality game craze by promoting the fairgrounds’ two “PokéStops” on Facebook: on Thursday, acounty fair intern was busy using her phone to “lure” more virtual creatures for avid gamers to collect.
Despite the STEAM push, many visitors said the fair’s main appeal still lies in its farm roots.
Nadia Abbas brought her two toddlers from Pleasanton primarily so they could see the animals. “It’s a nice exposure to things you don’t see in the usual kids attractions,” she said.
Raymond Haas, 65, lamented that the animal section of the fair has become smaller over the decade he’s been attending. “It’s the reason I come here,” he said, recalling his childhood on a farm in Minnesota.
Peacock, who hopes to own a farm someday, was excited to demonstrate his prowess during the “advanced showmanship” competition, where students show how well they can position their animals to display their best qualities. Peacock transferred to Westmont High School because of its unusual opportunity to study agriculture and livestock on a small school-owned farm.
As Peacock waited for the competition with his 1,200-pound steer, he said that while his chapter remains strong with about 100 members, he guesses that it, too, will likely die out at some point. But he’s grateful for his experience with FFA. “It teaches you a lot about responsibility,” he said.