Oct

N.C. State Fair Brings Familiar Fun

Today at 3pm the doors opened for the N.C. State Fair’s preday. Known for the rides, food, and livestock, the fair also features nightly concerts which require a modestly priced special ticket to get in. (Scotty McCreery’s shows Monday and Tuesday are sold out, but tickets are still available for Jake Owen, Matthew West, Hot Chelle Rae, Jason Michael Carroll, Brian McNight, Michael W. Smith, Billy Currington, and Corey Smith.

Food

While the State Fair is not my favorite food event of the year, there are several items to which I am look forward, including Cary Methodist Church brunswick stew and ham biscuits, Al’s French Fries, and N.C. State ice cream. A complete list of new foods is available, including deep-fried Girl Scout cookies. These freak-show foods aren’t what really excite me, though. I’d rather find some neat marinated meats cooked in a pit or over coals. I’ve always wanted to run either a kebab truck, a pizza in a cup truck, or a soup truck, (but it will never happen). Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the Cajun Grill (to the right of the Grandstand entrance) featuring some absolutely delicious seasoned fries and Crawfish Etoufee. In your search for food, the new Food Finder at the State Fair’s website looks like a good resource.

Navigation

I’ll likely be heading out there on Monday, sending Twitter updates as I go, using the hashtag #ncstatefair. Feel free to comment on your great finds here, and be as specific as you can about the location.

Wayfinding at the State Fair is extremely poor, and the fair is unfortunately ignoring this growing problem. For too many years people have said that some neat attraction was “near a sign that says pizza” or “near Dorton Arena”. Because these vague directions only leave me frustrated, I wrote the fair a couple of years ago asking for a signage system. To me the easiest solution would be to name the four or five zones of the fairgrounds and assign them colors. Take a look at these three maps:

Notice how the theme parks have assigned names and colors to their regions. The fairgrounds definitely has at least five regions:

the old midway, expo building, Graham building
the kiddieland midway and old expo buildings
the area next to the Scott Building extending back to the pig raceway
the new midway
The Village of Yesteryear, the flower show, lake, grist mill, etc.

Each of these areas could be named after a part of the state or a piece of our history. Zone names could be something like: Piedmont, Appalachian, Coastal, Banks, Croatan, Dare, etc. Then do what Disney did: a s s i g n c o l o r s to those zones on the maps, and put up signs at the entrance/exits of these zones. Now, to keenly address the original problem: put up signs on the existing light poles with numbers, perhaps, so that people can say "The best corn dog at the fair is BETWEEN lightpoles 12 and 7, in the Piedmont area", or "between lightpole 9 and Gate 6 in the Mountain area". That way people have pinpoint markers to plot where they are. Meet me at lightpole #12 at 3pm…. Of course, the numbers should be mounted high enough to be seen for a couple of Fair blocks and should match the color of that zone on the map. Eventually formal gateways could be added to signify the entrances to certain zones, but for now, colors on the lightpoles would suffice . Poles with numbers could also be mounted on the corners of some buildings, like Restaurant Row, for added distinction.

Rides

The new big rides Powers Great American Midways is bringing to the fair are The Rockstar and the Genesis. Both are “choir slingers”. I fail to see how the Rockstar is any different than The Rainbow. The Genesis looks like a side-facing DaVinci’s Cradle. The good news is the Skydiver makes its return to its place on the Old Midway. However there are three pitiful Ferris wheels. It’s a head-scratcher that in 1985 we had the Skywheel (double Ferris wheel), the Giant Wheel, and the front-facing Ferris wheel, yet in 2012 we have only three tiny bucket wheels.

A full, but tentative, list of rides is posted at the State Fair’s website. The list includes the number of tickets needed and the ride’s general location, too.

Transportation

The best times to go to the fair are Monday and Tuesday, and it isn’t even close. The crowds are very manageable, parking is better, and the ride times are decidedly longer. As far as parking goes, We have found success parking in the weekday afternoons on Beryl Road (access from the Waffle House on Hillsborough St.), but the Carter-Finley lot is a sure bet and has a dramatic entrance. In order to get by with the least amount of walking, however, ride the CAT bus . Routes run from downtown, Cary and the old Westinghouse site on Capital Blvd. Fare is $4 round trip, and the bus stop at the fairgrounds is at Gate #1 (at the edge of the Education Building).

Maps

Several maps exist of the fairgrounds:

Fair Website (Google)
PDF

Schedule

The Fair has printed an excellent booklet with the schedule included, and they are available at all of the entrances to the fairgrounds. That same schedule, however, is available online in html format, PDF format , and via the mobile platform apps.

Apps

While the NC State Fair has done a wonderful job with their website, they have also attempted to reach out to new platforms with mobile apps which include event schedules, maps, news, and more. The apps could use a lot of work, but they can still be helpful: