As intermittent rain spilled across the Dutchess County Fairgrounds on the eve of its 165th opening, a golf cart weaved among barns and tents and through tight spots created by the parked trucks of vendors unpacking their goods.
The man with the brush cut and keen eye behind the wheel stopped at one tent and shouted looking for the owners of the vehicles parked in the spot where the pool for the dock-diving dogs was to be assembled.
Bob Grems, general manager of the fair, said he”™s used to yelling having served as track announcer in years past for stock car racing.
As long the rain disappeared, it would be a good week.
Heavy rains last year at the end of the fair”™s run left drivers spinning their wheels as the acres of parking became mud pits.
Heavy rains on Aug. 22, left vendors and carnival workers unable to move as quickly as they normally do in building the amusements. Late arrivals and the next day”™s continuing showers forced workers to labor late into the night to be ready for the Tuesday morning opening. Grems, too, said he would be putting in a late night, making any glitches disappear.
The Dutchess County Fair is one of New York”™s best known, opening each third week of August for the past 165 years. More than 250,000 turn out.
It is second only to the New York State Fair in Syracuse in terms of its size and number of visitors is receives.
The final total paid attendance for last year”™s run was 158,678, down from 2008”™s record of 176,154. Since children under 12 are admitted free, the estimated overall attendance was 360,992 last year. In 2008, 400,560 turned out for the fair. Factor in the $15 admission for adults, the fair pulled in $2.3 million. And of course, that doesn”™t include the thousands spent to win that one stuffed toy at one of the midway concessions.
In choosing vendors, fair organizers give special consideration to local businesses. “We have approximately 220 indoor and outdoor vendor spaces, 45 craft booths in our three craft tents, 23 stands in the specialty foods building and 90 food booths throughout the grounds,” Deborah Aschmann, concessions manager, said in a statement. “Of the 308 vendors we host, one half of them, 154, are from the Mid-Hudson Valley. We also host five not-for-profits, helping them to use the fair to educate the 400,000 attendees about their mission.”
As for all that trash those 400,00 visitors create, the fair has a green initiative program that is in its third year.
“We are making the Dutchess County Fair a ”˜zero landfill” event,” Laurie Rich, coordinator of the Fairgrounds Green Initiative, said in a statement. “That means that none of the 97 tons of solid waste generated during the fair will end up in a landfill. Instead, it will go to the waste-to-energy plant in Poughkeepsie to be turned into electricity that goes back to the grid to power homes and businesses.”
No one under the more than 75 tents where events are held give much thought to how those sturdy white structures got there, but Jon Prezzano and partner Mike Leary of Bounce Central in Pine Plains will be more than happy to tell you, wiping off hours of sweat and watching the sunset on a muggy evening several days before the fair opened.
They spend about 30 days each year setting up those tents. A helping hand from Prezzano”™s grandfather, Tom Bergan, a Florida retiree who can”™t resist the lure of making sure everything is exactly as it ought to be. “He can”™t help himself,” laughed Prezzano affectionately. “Who can resist coming home to make sure we get it right?”
After putting in a 16-hour day, the trio was worn out from putting out 2,000 seats for concertgoers with the precision of clockmakers.  Both Prezzano and Leary attended Rhinebeck High School and remembered the own boyhood days when entering their livestock was the highlight of the summer.
“It was a thrill for us as kids to enter our animals in the competition and to come back as adults to help make this happen,” said Prezzano, who says they live on the grounds until the event is over.
