Great times at Canfield Fair

Today we made a visit to the Canfield (OH) fair, because we are doing a feature story and video on it as the Blue Ribbon Fair Award winner for 2010. Photographer Mark Hall, videographer Rich Johnston and I traveled the three hours from Columbus to visit this fair, which is near Youngstown in the northeast part of the state.

What a great fair!

My harness racing experience started at the county fair, so it feels like coming home when visiting a new fair. All county fairs have the same basic elements: half-mile track, elephant ears and wandering crowds, so what we are looking for in Blue Ribbon Fair Award winners is that dedication to harness racing that sets them apart.

The Canfield Fair requested $500 in USTA Matching Fair Grants, and we were intrigued by what they planned to do with it. They sent 500 postcards to residents of the Canfield area, and the first 25 to bring them to the races received a free tote bag with a harness racing logo on it.

After every race, announcer Roger Huston gave away a Canfield Fair/harness racing water bottle through a losing ticket drawing. There was a wagering seminar before the races, put on by Lee Unkefer, which helped many people learn to make their first bets, as Rich found out when doing video interviews later.

They also had a local TV commercial, but what really blew us away was their Web site www.canfieldfair.com. Check out the Youtube page! I think that is the best part. They are also on Twitter, have a blog and share photos online, so they are certainly bringing a decades-long tradition online for a new audience to discover.

It was great meeting Bev Fisher, fair manager, who submitted the proposal. Her passion for making Canfield the largest and best county fair in Ohio was evident when we spoke with her.

We also enjoyed the hospitality of George Berlin, who gave us a tour of the fair and did a great job in his video interview.

Rich and I kept remarking about how welcome we felt when we were there. County fairs generally tend to be neighborly places, but the folks at Canfield went above and beyond to make us feel welcome, put on a good harness program and get fair visitors interested in harness racing.

Congratulations on being named the 2010 USTA Blue Ribbon Fair!

Cheers,
TJB