The Park County Fair is a lot of things. 

It’s Powell’s biggest event of the year. It’s a place to eat and drink tasty — if often not too healthy — foods and drinks, have fun at the carnival and be entertained at the free stage and grandstands. It’s a place for youths to display their talents at raising and showing animals, and often sell them, and it’s a place for everyone to show off their creative side in the exhibition hall. 

For Park County Events Manager Billy Wood, it’s all those things and more, and for it to continue, it also needs to be profitable. 

Wood is still going over some of the numbers, but so far it’s looking good, as the fair made more money than it ever has under Wood’s leadership on a key area of potential revenue: the grandstand events.

“This year total profit was just over $24,000 in the grandstands,” Wood said. “My first year, we were less than $4,000, and last year we were at just over $11,000. So, I like that. I like that a lot.”

Only one event did not make money for the fair, the truck and tractor pulls, although it again brought in a good crowd of 857 paid attendees. 

In the past the concert has often been the big money loser, with the cost of bringing in a band and a stage not close to covered by attendance — last year just under 600 people paid to listen to That Arena Rock Show. 

The replacement Wednesday event this year, 10 fights put on by 307 Boxing, brought in just under 500 people. But under the profit sharing agreement with the fair, Wood said both 307 Boxing and the fair made money from the event. 

Pig wrestling was popular this year and, unlike in some recent years, was a money maker as well with 1,182 attendees watching 38 teams compete. 

And the two reliably profitable events once again delivered, as the Figure-8 race sold 1,225 tickets and the demolition derby 1,660 which, while not a sellout unlike some years, was still by a good margin the most popular grandstand event. 

While the carnival tickets were down a bit this year — Wood said that’s a recent trend — he said overall revenue looks to be up and said it looks to have been a good year revenue-wise. 

It was also a great year participation wise. 

There were 662 exhibitors at the fair this year, up 30 from last year, and nearly 8,200 entries, up roughly 300 from last year. Wood credited that partly to a big increase in FFA entries. 

“That’s the first time they've broke 8,000 entries, so that's awesome,” Wood said. “Overall a good fair.”