During the recent Western Fairs Association (WFA) Annual Meeting and Convention, WFA was pleased to roll out a new partnership to our members. The first-of-its-kind program designed especially for the recreational/event industry, will allow fairs to develop and manage both fairtime and interim events on their facilities.

Designed by Fairs Management Interactive (FMI), a division of Expo Engineering, the program consists of an on-line, subscription-based software that begins with an aerial or satellite photograph of an event facility, and allows each entity to zoom in and develop any area of the fairgrounds for specific events. Once developed, the layouts can be catalogued and kept online for future dates and events, or deleted.

The California Division of Fairs and Expositions partnered with WFA and FMI last fall to develop a library for the entire network of California Fairs. Each facility will have overhead maps developed and hosted on the WFA Library for use by each fair, as well as CA State Agencies, and three Joint Power Authorities who provide services for fairs.

“The beauty of the system is that as each fair site is developed, any tools or new ideas which are developed for an individual fair will automatically be made available to every other subscriber. Once more, each fair site will also include an administrative site which will allow a fair to baseline their infrastructure, as well as to develop future enhancements to their facility,” stated Stephen Chambers, WFA Executive Director.

“Once more, unlike most systems developed for large facilities, ‘bigger isn’t necessarily better’. Some larger fairs have spent tens of thousands of dollars to develop a program for their events. These costs would be prohibitive to most of our member fairs,” continued Chambers. “The system has been developed to run on a standard 52k modem, and can be viewed and utilized by multiple users simultaneously, without conflict. Because of underwriting by the CA Department of Food & Agriculture’s, Division of Fairs and Expositions, the annual subscription fee for California fairs will be $2,000 for small fairs, $5,000 for medium fairs, and $7,500 for large fairs.”

Changes can be made to the system quickly and easily, and can be uploaded to the library in a matter of seconds, to be viewed by all parties. Once all final changes are agreed to, the plans can be printed out and signed off by all parties, and forwarded to the fair’s contracts, or events staff for facilitation.

Enhancements to the system that are currently under development include facility and event photos that can assist a contractor or promoter preview and plan their event. As well as an ever expanding equipment list. FMI is capable or designing tools and equipment to each fair’s sizes. Everything from the size of a chair or table to the size of a proposed amphitheatre can be designed to fit.

“The branding of each site is always time consuming,” stated FMI President Steven Bolgiano. “But it’s also the most fun. Making the electronic overheads gives you the blank canvas each event will start with, whether it is the annual fair, a consumer trade show, or a local fundraiser or special event. Once that is done, all the fun really begins. Adding the fair’s name, theme, and colors are just the beginning. Then we start naming the buildings, building their standard events, and adding photos or other identifying features for the fair’s individual library. Sometimes the fairs can send us an electronic version of some of their events that they have developed; sometimes they are hard copies on graph paper. As long as we have accurate dimensions for the inside of their buildings, we can pre-load most of their events.”