A Tale of Two State Fair Maps
y Kristina Rasmussen I love fairs. I grew up making regular trips to the Minnesota State Fair and the county fair near my grandparents family farm. I love the moment you enter the fairgrounds and feel that intense energy — a concoction of cotton candy, Tilt-a-Whirl rides, vendors hawking their wares, and high-stakes 4-H competitions. It’s...
I love fairs. I grew up making regular trips to the Minnesota State Fair and the county fair near my grandparents family farm. I love the moment you enter the fairgrounds and feel that intense energy — a concoction of cotton candy, Tilt-a-Whirl rides, vendors hawking their wares, and high-stakes 4-H competitions.
It’s also the moment when a fair staffer or volunteer puts the fairgrounds map in your hands. That map is key. It directs you to all of the wonders in store during your visit.
I picked up a copy of the Illinois State Fair map a few weeks ago, and it doesn’t recommend itself much (see a PDF copy). It looked just like last year’s map. Heck, it could have been a map from 20 years ago. White background with monochromatic dark green ink, it wasn’t inspiring. The front cover gave more inches to the names of the state employees running the state fair than to the grandstand stage sponsor. Blah. The map does offer readers a “green tip” to print one office memo and circulate it to all staffers instead of “printing off a separate copy for everyone.” Odd messaging, considering they printed off a separate copy of the fairgrounds map for every visitor.
Now compare our state fair map to the map from the Texas State Fair. Theirs is bright. Colorful. Engaging. Easy to navigate.
You can also check out the Iowa State Fair map or the Indiana State Fair map. Same thing. They’re attractive.
A fairgrounds map says a lot about the fair itself and the people behind it. Each year, does the map visual itself get better? More attractive? More interactive? Are designers stretching their limits? Or does the “same old, same old” approach cut it?
Jim Nowlan’s column in yesterday’s Quad Cities Online said the Illinois State Fair struck him as a “bit tired.” I concur. When the Renville County Fair of my youth can offer up a splashier schedule of events(one that gives far more space to sponsors, I might add) than the Illinois State Fair, we’ve got a problem.
The folks who run the fair might point out that they’re dealing with fewer resources from state taxpayers. But as my colleague Collin Hitt points out, if you love the fair, you want it to be financially successful outside of government subsidies. And to succeed, it needs people. And people don’t want “tired.”
Time for a shake up? And no, I’m not talking about the lemonade shake ups sold at the fair.
The Texas State Fair is a private entity. If it doesn’t succeed, it folds. People lose their jobs. That’s a strong incentive to push, to create the gosh darn best state fair you can.
Would an end to state funding be the end of the Illinois state fair? Or would it spur it to be better? At a time when we’re borrowing to pay the state’s bills, all options should be on the table.