The fairgrounds are once again quiet and the Park County Fair is firmly in the rearview mirror, and now the assessment of how it all went is well underway.

County Events Coordinator Billy Wood updated both the Park County Commissioners and Fair Advisory Board members on the final numbers during Aug. 8 meetings.

Wood said attendance was solid for the most part, with 11,000 people buying either daily or weekly passes. Box office ticket sales were up roughly 5,000 while gate admissions were down around 4,000.

Wood said while an attempt to secure more advance sales for fair passes and events did not draw a lot of interest, people were flooding in to buy tickets in the final days before, such as a flood of carnival tickets being bought the day before it opened.

“I’ve heard positive comments,” Commission Chair Dossie Overfield said, while noting there are always people frustrated about something as well. “There’s people that still like this fair better than the state fair.”

However, while attendance was positive, some of the fair’s signature events were less so.

“Grandstand events had some more scary numbers,” he said.

The concert, specifically, was a concern, Wood said, with just 421 tickets sold (along with 81 complimentary tickets) that netted only $5,305 in revenue. The two performers cost a combined $7,700 and the stage another $10,000.

While the fair concerts often lose money, there have been years with much better attendance, Commission Chair Dossie Overfield noted. That increased attendance could lead to more people in the fairgrounds on Thursday, leading to more tickets being sold and more food and drink consumed. Wood said at this fair vendors told him Thursday night was the slowest besides Tuesday, the opening day of the fair.

Last year, Chancey Williams drew more than twice as many people and revenue was $20,245

While the concert and the pig wrestling (878 attendance and $4,235 revenue was offset in part due to having to construct a 30-foot pen) lost money, the other grandstand events made money, even stock dogs, which had 404 attendees ($2,880 revenue), due to almost no cost in putting it on.

The Figure 8 race and demolition derby both ran on a cost-sharing basis and both were well attended, with the Figure 8 race selling 831 tickets ($12,640 revenue) and the derby once again having a sell-out ($36,030), although Wood said some tickets were refunded because some who bought them could not find seats. Wood chalked it up to people leaving too much space in-between others and said they’ll revert to strict seating again next year to avoid that.

“Overall it seemed like a decent fair, always stuff to improve on,” he said.

Livestock sale numbers were high, a lot of youth showed animals — he said rabbit entries especially skyrocketed this year.

Wood said they could examine whether the types of vendors need to be more balanced, but there were a good amount of vendors, he said.