Opinion: The Fair has always been expensive, you're just older.

The Kay County Free Fair is underway this week, the 2nd full week of September, the same week and time it has been every year since the dawn of time. 

After we published the price list of the wristbands and tickets, as provided to us by “Weee Entertainment” (the heirs to Ottaway Amusement who had handled Blackwell’s fair along with 9,672 others in the area) the reaction online was … aggressive. 

“We just won’t go this year.” “We’ll go to the State Fair instead”. “We’re boycotting the fair”. 

The people came out decrying the cost of the fair almost immediately. I understand that, of course. Everything in our country is more expensive. The necessities are costlier than ever: cigarettes are up to $12 a pack, videogames are nearly $80, a medium bottle of vodka runs for damn-near $30 and a Beefy 5-Layer Burrito at Taco Bell is an outrageous $5 or $6. 

People are hardly scraping by. 

But let’s not act like the fair has never been a “money pit”. 

Let me say, first and foremost, the Kay County Free Fair is a fantastic thing for Blackwell and Kay County. 

The Fair Board works hard and thankless hours year-round, balancing their own personal lives and responsibilities with the unimaginable weight on their shoulders of 100+ years of tradition in attempting to coordinate livestock shows, crafts, entertainment, vendors, and so much more. 

The City of Blackwell’s employees in the Blackwell Public Power Electric Department as well as the Street & Parks Department also go to extreme lengths to make sure the fairgrounds are up to snuff. 

And , of course, the several volunteers who come to work the fair every year. Let’s not discount any of these peoples’ efforts. 

Now, back to the cost. 

Growing up in Blackwell, every kid no doubt asked their parents every day for fair money. I remember my parents giving me $20 every few days during fair week, and of course giving me extra money on Saturday for a wristband. From the time I moved here in 2002 to the time I stopped “going” to the fair for entertainment which was around 2010 when I was a Junior at Blackwell High School. 

That’s hundreds of dollars right there.

$20 at the Fair in the 2000’s got you about as much as $20 gets you in 2024. 

When you had “Fair money” you had to make a choice. You could either eat some deep fried Snickers-covered catfish on a stick, buy two or three tickets, or go to a vendor and buy a comically large “laser pointer” kit. 

Now the children that begged their parents for money then are the parents giving their kids “Fair money” now. 

Little Maxlyn, Paxlyn, Braxlyn, Kinzleigh-Reighlynn, Brinleigh, Tinzleigh, and Sarah are going to be asking for money to go hang out with their friends at the fair all week so that they too can experience standing in line for 45 minutes to strap into a metal death machine and get spun around for 90 seconds before they go to Gammy’s Gumbo Booth and get a nice helping of deep-fried turkey leg covered in crushed Oreos and wash it down with a 90 oz Root Beer.

Then they’ll spot some resin-cast necklace of Freddy Fazbear hitting the griddy with Hello Kitty sipping from a cup of lean from some vendor booth and they’ll go- “damn, I don’t have any money”. 

It’s a rite of passage, the same way we would all congregate at the fair, wait 45 minutes to ride “The Spider” while “Cowboy” by Kidrock blasted from the old crackling speakers and some carnival worker with no shirt chain-smoking 6 cigarettes at a time would lazily tear our $10 tickets only for us to discover we didn’t have enough money to buy a super sick ninja sword from some junk booth. 

But let’s think, for a minute. The money you are spending at the fair is going into the pockets of hard-working independent business owners. 

That booth selling the coasters of Fortnite Characters dabbing? I can guarantee they spent more money to even be here than what they’re charging for a poster of a Minecraft Creeper smoking a joint. 

The food truck selling you that peanut butter and fried okra burger on a raisin bread bun? They’re significantly under-charging what they should after they spent God-knows how much on gas and upkeep to their truck to get here. 

The concession stand selling frito chili pies? It’s manned by volunteers that have hundreds of other things they need to be doing, but they’re there to make sure their FFA / 4-H kids have the funds to maintain their costly animals and to cover expenses traveling to all these shows.

The Fair has always been “expensive” to ride rides. It’s always been “expensive” to eat and to buy things. But you are supporting hard-working artists, business owners, families, students, athletes, and more. You don’t have to ride rides. No one is holding your loved ones hostage and forcing you to go for a spin on the “Wedgie-Pounder 9000”. 

But every little bit of your support goes a long way for the vendors and food trucks that have paid to be there, that have worked tirelessly over the last year or several months to get their wares together to bring. 

You are supporting a Fair Board that goes through hell every single year to bring their neighbors an unforgettable week, and most importantly to foster tourism in the area. 

So go on. You don’t have a problem buying your $25 vape or your lotto scratchers or spending $150 on XinPing’s Golden Palace slot machine so go buy that caramel-covered deep-fried sausage. Buy that hand-made quilt of Betty Boop with a machine gun. 

You have all year to spend your money and line the pockets of big businesses- what’s one week of supporting independent business owners?