Maintaining a Legacy Brand and Growing it into the Future

Yes, and that's a challenge, right? We need to continue to do that.

I mean, that's an area... where we really need to reach out to the different generations and what are people looking for, but also staying true to who we are and what our roots are.

There's a lot more competition now in the area of people that are doing things, different parts of the fair, not all the pieces of the fair together.

So it is something continually we need to look at.

What is it in the culinary scene that we need to talk about? Is it canning or is it pie making or is it whatever it may, is it spam, right? And how you can cook spam, whatever it may be.

That's what we need to stay on is how do we keep it relevant? And also just really that nod to who we are and staying true to who we are.

Yeah.

What are the some ways you do that? Because you live at the intersection of nostalgia and tradition, right? And yet you're thinking ahead and moving things.

How can you bring that forward? How do you how do you keep that top of mind and how do you know where to invest and what things to try and what things to let go of as you're planning strategically and experimenting?

You know, and I think part of it is just, you know, you have to be, you know, Knowing what's going on out there just in the world, right? And in your area and where we live, we're part of an international affairs association.

But we may be very different here, you know, in the Pacific Northwest than you'd see maybe traditionally, right, in the Midwest, right? Maybe you're in Iowa.

But there are pieces of that.

So one of the things is cattle birthing, right, is something that we brought a couple years ago to the fair.

which it's done very differently if you were going to Iowa to go to the fair and their cattle birthing, right? It had less of the display and less maybe of the education.

And so what we really try to do is maybe see what's going out there, but what can we do here to make it more experiential, to differentiate it, to make it worthy of someone's time to go and see it? So one side is looking in industry, but I would say we take that and then we also look at how can we do it differently here to maybe reach our guests and our demographics of the Pacific Northwest differently than you would in the Midwest.

Like our farm at Sillyville is another example of that and how we developed that exhibit.

And even our CP Huntington train or our Sillyville area that we have is very unique.

There's not a lot of fairs that have permanent rides outside of maybe like a giant slide and maybe a sky ride type ride.

But we also have our Extreme Scream.

We have our Classic Coaster.

We have our Antique Carousel.

So we have unique and different offerings.

Those are rides that we have purchased to make sure that we can keep that nostalgia and that tradition alive.

So when you've come here and gone on one of those rides as a kid, you'll now be able to bring your kids or your grandkids back to do that.

Very important.

Yes, and that's a challenge, right? We need to continue to do that.

I mean, that's an area... where we really need to reach out to the different generations and what are people looking for, but also staying true to who we are and what our roots are.

There's a lot more competition now in the area of people that are doing things, different parts of the fair, not all the pieces of the fair together.

So it is something continually we need to look at.

What is it in the culinary scene that we need to talk about? Is it canning or is it pie making or is it whatever it may, is it spam, right? And how you can cook spam, whatever it may be.

That's what we need to stay on is how do we keep it relevant? And also just really that nod to who we are and staying true to who we are.

Yeah.

What are the some ways you do that? Because you live at the intersection of nostalgia and tradition, right? And yet you're thinking ahead and moving things.

How can you bring that forward? How do you how do you keep that top of mind and how do you know where to invest and what things to try and what things to let go of as you're planning strategically and experimenting?

You know, and I think part of it is just, you know, you have to be, you know, Knowing what's going on out there just in the world, right? And in your area and where we live, we're part of an international affairs association.

But we may be very different here, you know, in the Pacific Northwest than you'd see maybe traditionally, right, in the Midwest, right? Maybe you're in Iowa.

But there are pieces of that.

So one of the things is cattle birthing, right, is something that we brought a couple years ago to the fair.

which it's done very differently if you were going to Iowa to go to the fair and their cattle birthing, right? It had less of the display and less maybe of the education.

And so what we really try to do is maybe see what's going out there, but what can we do here to make it more experiential, to differentiate it, to make it worthy of someone's time to go and see it? So one side is looking in industry, but I would say we take that and then we also look at how can we do it differently here to maybe reach our guests and our demographics of the Pacific Northwest differently than you would in the Midwest.

Like our farm at Sillyville is another example of that and how we developed that exhibit.

And even our CP Huntington train or our Sillyville area that we have is very unique.

There's not a lot of fairs that have permanent rides outside of maybe like a giant slide and maybe a sky ride type ride.

But we also have our Extreme Scream.

We have our Classic Coaster.

We have our Antique Carousel.

So we have unique and different offerings.

Those are rides that we have purchased to make sure that we can keep that nostalgia and that tradition alive.

So when you've come here and gone on one of those rides as a kid, you'll now be able to bring your kids or your grandkids back to do that.

Very important.