Published on: Friday, September 03, 2010

By Nick Coletta

Attendance at the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair was up from 2009 because of relatively favorable weather conditions and more economically friendly pricing, according to the fair’s executive director Marty Svrcek.

At the fair, a nine-day event from Aug.13 to 21 in Gaithersburg, families can browse through the live animal exhibits, win prizes as they try their luck at the gaming vendors, hop on the rides, milk a cow, carve a masterpiece out of a two-pound block of cheddar in the cheese-carving contest and wrap up their time at the fair by grabbing a bite to eat at one of the many food vendors.

Svrcek said the estimated headcount for this year’s fair attendance is approximately 200,000, which is nearly 15,000 more than the fair saw last year; the fair saw a drastic drop in visitors on two of its most important days last year due to heavy rain and thunderstorms.

“We lost the last Friday and Saturday last year, which are the most popular days to be at the fair,” Svrcek said. “As the weather goes, so go folks going to the fair.”

This year, the fair only had one day where there was a significant drop in commission and attendance due to bad weather, and Svrcek said he expects to see a significant increase in the attendance rates from 2009 once the final headcount is determined.

The fair’s data-processing coordinator, Cathy Shepard, said there was a drop in the number of competition entries this year from 2009.

“We had exactly 18,957 entries,” Shepard said about this year’s numbers. “This is about 500 less than last year, but that’s not really that many because, say you bring one cow to enter, that one cow can be entered into say three different events, so it just really varies.”

According to Svrcek, the weather has played a larger role than the economy when it comes to a loss of attendance in the past, but that hasn’t stopped the fair’s staff from becoming as wallet friendly as possible.

A newly developed pricing structure that was implemented for this year’s fair is another factor in the attendance increase, according to Svrcek.

“This year, children 11 and under were free every day of the fair,” Svrcek said. “We also had two family days where we offered a Carnival Mega-Pass for $25. The pass let families ride as many rides as they want, and they can go all the way until midnight.”

Svrcek said the fair’s staff received a lot of praise from patrons for the new price reductions.

“We have heard a lot of positive things from the community, especially about allowing children 11 and under to get in for free,” Svrcek said. “And we plan to implement the same policy next year.”