County fair loses nearly $20,000

Although the Cheyenne County fair board lost nearly $20,000 during this year's festivities, fair board representative Kip Miller still feels positively about the event.

"It's up and coming," Miller said. "I think, you know, it's starting to turn around."

The Cheyenne County fair took place between July 27 and Aug. 2.

The Monday night rodeo, which was sponsored by Cabela's, drew between 1,500 and 1,700 attendees. Rodeo fees were waived that night because of a donation of $5,000 from Cabela's. That essentially bought 500 tickets to allow area families to attend the rodeo for free.

The next night – when fees were $8 per person with a barbeque dinner included – attendance dropped to about 500.

"It just amazed me how we had 1,500 on one night and (almost) 500 on the next night," Miller said.

The fair board lost about $4,000 that second night.

A free ventriloquist show in the fair building on Wednesday drew a crowd of around 200.

The tractor pull, which took place on Thursday night, saw an attendance of more than 500, but experienced a net loss of around $3,400.

The fair board paid out a higher purse than in the past – $13,000 for the bull riding event – to try to attract more participants.

"Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way," Miller said.

The event drew around the same number of riders as in past years. Almost 900 people attended the event, but the board still lost around $7,800.

"On that $13,000 purse, that was just hoping we could get more riders to come down and fill, bring their friends and family," Miller said.

The demolition derby, which had a prize of $10,000, drew almost 1,000 spectators and only resulted in a loss of about $250.

The fair vendors, on the other hand, had one of their best years in a while, Miller said.

Although the carnival struggled at the Cheyenne County fair last year and even considered not coming to Sidney in 2014, it did well this year, he said.