The Park County Fair came out a little bit ahead on its marquee events this year, but fair leaders will be looking for one or two new grandstand events for the 2020 fair after attendance fizzled over a couple nights.

At a meeting last week, fair advisory board members and staff indicated they’ll replace the Knights of Valour and possibly the ranch rodeo, too.

The fair lost roughly $7,700 on the knights’ jousting show, as attendance dropped by nearly 25 percent from the troupe’s last performance in 2015; a total of 587 tickets were sold.

Meanwhile, despite the addition of mutton-busting (featuring children trying to ride sheep), only 189 people bought tickets for the ranch rodeo. Of the three years the event has been featured at the fair, that was by far the lowest attendance and it led to a roughly $1,500 loss.

In contrast, having a pair of Wyoming performers headline the annual concert proved a winning combination. With Chancey Williams and the Younger Brothers Band and Ned LeDoux taking the stage, the fair sold 1,273 tickets and — for the first time in recent memory — turned a small, roughly $1,900 profit on the show.

“That was a good concert,” fair advisory board member Christy Muecke said.

LeDoux and Williams brought in nearly $39,600 in revenue against roughly $37,700 in expenses, amounting to a net gain of about $1,900. That’s a welcome change from recent shows which, despite featuring bigger names, saw significant losses. For example, the fair lost about $12,700 on Easton Corbin’s performance last year and went more than $19,000 into the red with Terri Clark in 2016.

“Lonestar was really close [to breaking even in 2017], but this surpassed that even,” said Park County Events Administrator Audra Jewell.

As for the fan-favorite demolition derby, it netted a profit of almost $13,000 for the fair while selling 1,534 tickets. It’s possible the event could see a change in management in 2020. Don Adams has organized the derby the past couple of years, but another Powell resident, Dustin Short, has expressed interest in running it. Jewell said part of Short’s goal would be to “have the ticket prices lower so more people can enjoy it.”

Board chairman Tiffany Brando suggested the fair solicit proposals from both Adams and Short.

“It’s worth a shot,” Brando said.

Meanwhile, putting on the annual pig wrestling event — which features free admission — cost the fair about $3,400. All told, though, the 2019 Park County Fair recorded a net gain of about $2,250 on the big events.

As for new events in 2020, board member Sara Skalsky suggested the rodeo could be replaced with a mixture of mutton-busting and goat-cart races (with goats pulling children in carts). Skalsky said her thought is to “make it more of a kid-friendly [event], because we didn’t make very much money off of ranch rodeo.”

Jewell added that part of the challenge with ranch rodeo is that it’s held in the horse arenas, east of the grandstands.

“It’s not truly a grandstand event and we continue to get complaints about having to go over to the arenas,” she said; fair staff have discussed what it might cost to build an arena inside the grandstands.

There was also some brainstorming about bringing back a Park County’s Got Talent-type show, a mounted shooting competition or another motorsport, such as the Endurocross, Arenacross or Figure 8 race.

Board member Teresa Decker suggested reaching out to the local 4-H and FFA groups and perhaps offering a reward for a winning idea.

“Maybe the kids would have something we wouldn’t even think of,” Decker said.

Although the 2020 fair is some 11 months away, Jewell cautioned the board that it’s already time to “get moving” on any fair-run grandstand events.

“We want to make sure we have enough time so it’s successful,” she said, “because the last thing we want to do is kind of half-ass something.”

Park County Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Mike Garza also warned the board to remember county commissioners’ ongoing efforts to cut $2 million out of the county’s budget.

“You guys need to be ready in case that’s going to … affect the budget negatively — which most likely it’s going to do,” Garza said.

Amid a tight budget, there was also good news. Beyond the concert, revenue from vendors was up.

“I crammed as many people in there as we could,” Jewell said, and she still had to turn some people away. Business at the fair-run beer garden was also booming.

Sales of alcoholic beverages brought in $37,645 in gross revenue — up nearly $6,000 from 2018.

“We were so busy, that’s what I ended up doing [during the concert] was stocking beer,” Jewell said, “which is a good problem to have.”

She attributed the uptick to the introduction of more expensive aluminum bottles and to a wide range of choices, which included White Claw hard seltzer and Smirnoff Ice, a flavored malt beverage.

As for projects over the coming year, fair leaders will soon seek proposals to re-do the concrete in the sheep barn and they’re putting together a group of people to provide input on potential renovations to the beef barn; they’ve also been brainstorming ways to add shade to the show ring. However, Garza noted each of those efforts will be subject to the county’s budget constraints.

“We can’t fix everything, because we’re working with very limited public money,” he said.