It’s time to start salivating. The 2019 New York State Fair opens in 20 weeks.
Page 29 of 75
A comment from a veteran observer, sniffed out recently by State Fair Hound, advanced an intriguing theory about the future of musical entertainment at the New York State Fair. He believes that soon major concerts will be relocated from the cozy confines of Chevrolet Court to the spacious pastures of the New York Experience area.
Considering how cramped and crowded Chevy Court becomes when a major act plays there, it’s an idea whose time may have come. 
The Experience stage was placed in a corner, facing a slightly-sloping open area that certainly has the potential for future development. There will be some planning and figuring needed before starting work on development into what would essentially become a festival grounds, but it could work out very nicely.
A temporary stage had to be erected for the Experience concerts, and they could continue to do that, at least in the short run. Prior to the renovation of the grounds, the Grandstand stage was built before every Fair and torn down prior to Labor Day for motorsport events and that was OK.
Another option would be for both stages to continue to host concerts without actually designating one as the primary venue. Really, what’s the point? Just book great acts and place them wherever makes sense at the time.
The Fair should really work on seating, technical support, amenities and patron transportation before going all in on the Experience Stage, but it could all work out.
Juggler extraordinaire Hilby will be a featured performer at this weekend’s Winter Fair at the New York State Fairgrounds.
This will be the first such event, made possible by last year’s opening of the massive Exposition Center.
Check the Fair’s website for details and tickets to enjoy rides, music, exhibits and fabulous Fair food starting Friday.
It’s hard to believe that after all of the improvements made at the new York State Fairgrounds over the past few years, there’s still another structure that could be a candidate for massive renovation. 
The concrete racing stables, located near the New York Experience park at the western end of the grounds has State Fair leaders intrigued.
“There are some plans being floated to start to develop this part of the property to make it tie in a little better,” Director Troy Waffner told State Fair Hound. “It’s a beautiful building. For not having had a lot of money put into it over the years, it’s structurally sound. The architecture is still strong, the foundation is still strong.”
Historically, the V-shaped complex was used by owners of harness racing horses competing on the grounds’ dirt track, especially during the glory days of the Syracuse Mile. 
With the track now a memory, needs have changed, though some horses are still stabled in the building under rental agreements.
If left to the imagination, it’s easy to think of possible uses for the stables, though extensive cleanup and remodeling would certainly be necessary. Proximity to the emerging prominence of the Experience Stage could come into play as a concert-support structure.
It could remain a home for horses, replacing some of the dilapidated barns used by 4-H participants. Adding a visitors’ center would be a great way to attract horse enthusiasts, who are often banned from the main horse barn.
Maybe that end of the grounds could benefit from a building to host vendors, restaurants, exhibits or performance venues, though the Expo Center has filled a lot of that need. But any way you look at it, this structure very likely has a future as part of the Fair. 
“If you add it up, it’s actually more square footage than our Exposition Center,” Waffner told The Hound. “The rotunda is absolutely beautiful.”
It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds in terms of renovating the stables to bring them into use as a bookend on the Fair’s western perimeter.
Wonder how many State Fair fans have a tree like this one. Merry Christmas.
Those South American beauties are back at the Fairgrounds this weekend for the Alpaca Showacular, moving into the Expo Center after several years filling the dairy cattle barn. The larger venue will allow expansion into a brighter, more maneuverable building, allowing visitors to get a better look at these amazing and adorable mountain dwellers. More vendor space and improved food stands can only help the event grow, just as the popularity of alpaca ranching has developed in New York, the eastern US and Canada. Admission is still free Friday through Sunday, but petting the stars is a challenge as these llama cousins are generally shy.
Now that the ice has melted, the schedule at the New York State Fair Exposition Center is filling in with a variety of events that will take advantage of the massive exhibit space and versatility under the multi-tiered roof. 
Coming on Nov. 2 and 3 is Best Fest, featuring entertainment, food and vendors from across the Empire State. One dollar sample portions–so popular at the annual Best of Syracuse Festival held in Clinton Square–will be available and parking on the massive midway lot is free.
Next up will be the alpaca Show on Nov. 9-11, moving into the larger space after years in the dairy cattle barn. More on that event in a later post.
It will be interesting to watch the development of the $62 million Expo Center as it reaches for its potential on the Central New York entertainment and tourism landscape.
Today is observed as Columbus Day, but it’s important to recognize that before Europeans crossed the Atlantic, the Western Hemisphere had been inhabited for centuries by civilizations that built villages, farms, roads and canals. Among the native inhabitants were the Haudenosuanee, who welcome visitors to the New York State Fair’s Iroquois Village every summer. Known for their longhouses and canoes, the people of the Six Nations lived under a sophisticated system of laws and government that inspired the US constitution. The arrival of Columbus is no cause for celebration to Native Americans.
Legend has it that famous catcher and coiner of witticisms, Yogi Berra once remarked about a New York night spot, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”
After this year, you have to wonder if that fate could befall the New York State Fair, its own success becoming an obstacle to burgeoning popularity. Ironically, the Fairgrounds themselves aren’t really too crowded, it’s the limited roads leading in and the overstressed parking lots that are the problem.
The grounds themselves are remarkably spacious. 
Even when the attendance exceeds 100,000, there’s space for walking, places to relax and eat and an impressive amount of green space. Since the demolition of the grandstand and track, modifications have made the entire Fairgrounds a tremendous facility.
While it’s clear that the grounds can handle extremely-high attendance days, it’s equally clear that the access roads and parking areas can’t. The Fair relentlessly promotes the Centro Park-And-Ride system as an alternative and on typical days it’s a good choice. But if the traffic converging on the Fairgrounds is jammed up badly enough, the bus locations are also affected, sometimes disastrously.
Yes, the newly-paved orange lot was a monumental improvement over the old, pothole-laden dirt surface, even with its heavily-criticized narrow parking spaces. But we certainly learned on Sep. 1 that it wasn’t enough to prevent a mess.
If you sat in a traffic jam on Day 11, you have a right to be angry over the deeply- flawed–make that insane–decision to book a sold-out amphitheater show on a day that is always one of the busiest at the Fair. Hey Joanie (and successor), hey Live Nation–don’t be jerks. Don’t book a concert on the Fair’s most popular days, those around Labor Day weekend. It just makes a bad situation worse. Apply some common sense and give the amp the weekend off.
Given that you can essentially approach the Fair from east or west, not north (the lake, remember?) or south (just Bridge Street from Solvay), what else can be done?
If you’re trying to time your approach to avoid the crush, you can access traffic cameras on the WeatherBug website, but they’re limited, sometimes pointed the wrong direction and essentially unreliable. There was a time years ago that the Fair website had camera feeds that could be accessed on the web. Since more information can only help, more cameras, easily accessed and feeding views of roads and parking lots would definitely help. In this day of high-tech, it’s something that can be accomplished.
Meanwhile, it wasn’t easy to get information on the flow into the Fair in real time. Spectrum News did more than anyone on that front, but how about posting more traffic news on the Fair website to advise motorists what they may face and how to best cope?
Supervising the operation of parking thousands of cars is tough, thankless work, so criticizing those who do it could be considered unfair. But it can be done better. The turnover of spaces–getting new arrivals into vacated spaces could be more efficient.
On non-Fair days, if you’re cruising I-690 west and take the ramp onto I-695 (Camillus Bypass) and drive toward Auburn or Camillus, you can sometimes see Fair-related vehicles parked in grassy areas off to the right. How much space is there and can some be made into additional parking? Worth a look.
In addition to the highly-visible railroad tracks along State Fair Boulevard, there are multiple tracks behind the RV park. There’s a lot of wooded area back there and it’s reasonable to assume that the property belongs to the railroad companies and that they aren’t anxious to give it up. Is there room for negotiation or a buyout that could make some of that space available to the Fair for traffic access or parking? 
Speaking of trains, we know that visitors from out of town can arrive by rail at the platform back near the racing stables. Could there be local rail service arranged, at least for those critical 13 days, by which trains could transport patrons from downtown and Syracuse suburbs? This is an especially appealing idea as local service to Gate 11 could excite adventurous fans who may find bus service undesirable, but would enjoy a train trip.
Maybe some of these ideas are unrealistic, even crazy. OK, but there have to be changes. We don’t want to have Yogi’s words describing a Fair with traffic problems that are scaring off customers, keeping it from living up to its full potential.
Did you see the drone light show over the New York Experience area at the New York State Fair? It was a little like star-gazing.