Wyoming State Fair 2024 - with Courtny Conkle

CoolKay interviews the Wyoming State Fair 2024 with General Manager  Courtny Conkle about the history of the fair, parking and waht to do for seniors and kids under 12. We also talk about fair food and entrtainment and what else goes on at this fairgrounds during the year.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, missus. Courtney County Fair round in cool Okay? Here?
Do I have the fair coming up? The Wyoming State Fair, Yes,
you certainly do. We open next week on Tuesday the thirteenth. Hi,
all right, So what I usually do when I start
these things is I ask for a little bit about
the history of the event. Do you know when the
event started? Yes, the women State Fair was founded in

(00:24):
nineteen oh five, and so we've been going strong for
one hundred and nineteen years and we're looking forward to
the next century. Oh that sounds exciting. You're going to
be around for the next century. Gosh, I hope. So
I've been taking my vitamin Okay, Daryland House for parking,
because that's the first question people ask. Our parking is
actually really good. We're super blessed to have a pretty

(00:46):
large facility with ample parking, and all of it is free,
and so it is first come, first serve, and we
do have EIGHTYA parking on grounds as well as we
offer shuttles from our parking lots and are also EIGHTYA accessible.
Oh that's good, all right? All right, So if I'm
an old person coming in the gate, what would you

(01:06):
suggest I do? First? I would suggest getting the number
off of our Facebook page for the Blue and Gold
taxi service, because that is actually run by our state
FFA officers and they use the tips that they gather
from that shuttle service to help fund their special projects
for the year ahead. But you can park at any

(01:26):
of our parking lots, call them directly and they will
actually come to carside, shuttle you onto the Fairgrounds and
take you wherever you need to go so you have
the best possible experience. Yeah, old people can't walk that well.
You know, our Fairgrounds is built on a hill, and
so I can I need the Blue and Gold taxi service. Okay,

(01:50):
what about kids? What if I got a whole bunch
of little noisy kids under twelve? Oh my goodness, there's
so much for little ones to do it or fair
The thing that we're especially proud of is a program
that we launched last year called Everyday ad. It is
completely free to participate. It is a full grounds tour
that is completely imversive and it teaches you about how

(02:10):
agriculture is truly in every part of our day to
day lives. So you see it in the food court,
you see it through an audio tour throughout our barns
and then even up throughout our static halls where we
help teach kids about how their favorite hobbies and commodities
are related to agriculture. It culminates with a scavenger hunt
prize and then anybody that completes the full hunt is

(02:33):
entered to win five hundred dollars cash. Oh that sounds
like fun. I bet that's has that been going on
for a long time. We just launched it last year.
But the thing that's pretty cool about it is we
built it all so that way other fares could use
it also, and now we've gotten nearly thirty fares across
the country utilizing the program. Oh that's cool, that's cool.
That's a neat thing. Okay, So what about ground Jax.

(02:58):
So this year we've got some fun stuff. We have
the Sea Lions Flash joining us, so we will have
Sea Lions shows every day. We also have the unicycling Unicorn.
We've got Michael Mesmer who will be doing a family magic, danger,
magic and hypnosis show. And then something new for our
lineup this year. We have collaborated with a statewide competition

(03:20):
called the Wyoming Singer Songwriters and they are actually helping
us to produce all of our live music on the fairgrounds,
so that's included with your fair admission, so we'll be
able to celebrate the best talent across the whole state
of Wyoming throughout the week. Oh that sounds fun. By
the way, I've interviewed Michael. He's great, Yes he is.
He's fabulous. Okay, all right, So what about food? That's

(03:42):
always a question. We've got a great mix of new
food offerings and some of our traditional fair food offerings.
We even have a vendor that has been at our
fairgrounds for over fifty years, so it truly is a
multi generational tradition to go to jack Loope Catering and
enjoy some of the best food in the life. And
we also have, of course, the classic Cowboy burger from Rotary.

(04:05):
They're celebrating their forty second year serving up those burgers
at the Women State Fair, and we have people come
from all over the region just to enjoy those burgers. Okay,
so what's your favorite fair of food? I always ask
the managers that too. My favorite fair of food is
cotton candy, and I think the pure sugar just helps me
keep running. I could debate you about that, but I

(04:26):
want Yeah, probably could use a little protein. Okay, all right,
So then we're going to talk about the carnival. Is
the carnival included with the price of admission. No, the
carnival is a separate price. We do offer tickets or wristbands.
And something that we're so appreciative that our carnival does
for us is they also offer a makeup path that

(04:48):
is good for all five days at the fair for
unlimited carnival rides. So it's super helpful for folks that
live close to the area that want to make the
most of their fair experience and come every day, and
especially for our participants that are going to be staying
on site with us for the duration of the event. Okay,
all right, let's talk for each buildings. That's always a
big part of these things. What do you got, Oh

(05:10):
my goodness. We are super blessed with our forage and
FFA programs, and we're doing a couple of new things
this year. So we've got pretty extensive buildings. They're fairly new.
We've got one that is eighty thousand square feet and
that houses all of our beef and our sheep. We
have the sixty thousand square foot farm that houses our swine,
and then we've got two open airbarns for our goats

(05:33):
and our open sheep shows, so we've got no shortage
of live stuck at the Worm State Fair. But something
that we do that is super special is we actually
have a Champion of Champions competition where the kids that
one grand champion at the county fares across the state
they come together and they celebrate and compete head to head,
where every kid that is in that ring is a

(05:54):
champion of one of their county fairs. So it's really competitive,
but it's also just a great celebration of all of
our counties throughout the state and those kids' efforts throughout
the year. Yeah, kids work hard for each I know
that they do. And this year we've also been able
to increase our payouts. The last couple of years we've
done actually probably the last twenty plus years, we've done

(06:16):
pretty minimal payouts for our grand champions and reserve champions,
totaling about gosh four or five hundred dollars, And this
year our payouts are over twenty one thousand dollars. So
we make the generosity of folks frooms across the state
and honestly surrounding states as well, so we've been able
to really help them to make their states fair experience

(06:39):
extra special. Okay, let's talk stage entertainment. That's why he's
an important part. What have you got? What evening entertainment acts?
Are we talking? So we have nightly grand stand entertainment.
We kick off with the Ranch Rodeo. That is a
super fun tradition. It was brought back last year by
an incredible group of volunteers that have stepped up to

(07:01):
make it a sustainable event. And then we've got two
nights of PRCA Rodeo. We're actually one of the original
PRCA rodeos in the country. We date back to nineteen ten,
so we were PRCA for PRCA was PRCA. And then
we shift to motorsports later in the week. We do
a figure eight race on Friday night and then we

(07:23):
do the Demolition Derby on Saturday. Okay, all right, well
music erka fingers, Yes, so we will have we'll have
over twenty different stage acts throughout the week of affair
and they are all affiliated with the Wildming Singer Songwriter Competition,
and so it is truly a celebration of the best

(07:46):
of Wylming. All right, So then the evening entertainment stage
X that they crossed for, they have to pay more
for tickets. Nope, all of those singer songwriter showcases, those
are all included with your fair admission. Oh okay, all right,
So do you have any paid a mission things for
the evening that are special? We do have those Grand

(08:06):
Sian events that I mentioned, and each of those are
the standalone tickets. Okay, okay, all right. Well, one of
the things that I always like to ask you guys
is you're a stake third Grounds. There's other events that
occur there during the year, So what do you know
what comes up after the state Fair? Yes, so just
last year is a great example of this. Outside of
the state Fair, we ran four hundred and seventy nine

(08:28):
event days, so we are busy. Right after the fair.
We actually get ready for the wool Growers Ram Sale
that is celebrating I believe it's ninety ninety year at
the one Wow Wow really deep agricultural history and a
great way for us to kind of start to celebrate

(08:49):
that fall feat And as we transition, we also switch
back to having private events such as weddings and kid sinias,
and then we shift gears a little bit more to
more fall centric events like our harvest esimal that will
happen in October. Okay, all right, thoroughly enjoy talking to you,
and hopefully this will help some people find out you know,
where to go and stuff. Oh well, you know, one

(09:10):
of the things I forgot to ask, what about restroom facilities?
I take it they're readily available. They are. They're readily available.
And then any of the areas that we don't have
permanent we bring in portables just so that way we
can make sure that we are creating the best experience
possible for everybody. Okay, all right, thank you Courtney. We'll
get this up and get this posted and we'll get

(09:31):
you some traffic. Thank you so much. Have a good day.
Bye bye bye