I don’t dream often.
However, last night I had a weird dream that I was once again asked to manage the Riverside County Fair/National Date Festival, something that I did for six years back in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
I spent the dream thinking about things that I would do to freshen up the event. Hmmm…
To be honest, I hadn’t given much thought to that Fair Manager gig in the past thirty years. It was a pit stop in my time with the County of Riverside when I was about mid-career working in the Executive Office. The County Supervisor for the Coachella Valley area (Palm Springs is the largest city) needed some leadership at the Fairgrounds and decided that I was the solution. At the time, I was the Budget Czar of County government, knew a lot about a lot of things, but had no experience in entertainment or running a for-profit business.
At that time, the County Fairgrounds was an “enterprise fund” operation, which meant that no tax dollars went into the budget, so it was a separate business within the County government structure: it had its own bank account and was expected to make a profit on its operations.
I didn’t say it to the Supervisor, but I felt like Prissy in Gone With The Wind telling Scarlett O’Hara, “I don’t know nothin’ bout birthin’ babies!” Supervisor Larson was insistent, promising that it would only be for three years, and I went TDY down to Indio for the adventure.
It ended up being six years, but I’m happy that I accepted the challenge.
At the time, the annual 10-day National Date Festival was the tenth largest county fair in the United States (out of a couple of thousand!) and had a unique theme: Arabian Nights. The latter was a tribute to the date (fruit) industry in the Coachella Valley, it’s origin in the Middle East, and the Arabic folk story The Thousand and One Nights. Back in the 1940’s, a Hollywood set designer had imagineered an Arabic castle in the center of the Fairgrounds and this set piece became the focal point of an annual outdoor play (every evening of the Date Festival) and the setting for the Queen Scheherazade competition.
Back in the day, all of this Arabic stuff was much loved by the locals, many of whom worked in the date industry. Our fair was famous for its camel races, too.
However, by the time I came along, “Arab” was a four-letter word in American society, so marketing the annual event to new customers was a challenge. One of the first things I did was to emphasize the regional importance of the event (the Riverside County Fair) and the year-round, multi-use capability of the fairgrounds, which we renamed the Desert Expocentre.
The Arabian Nights pageant remained a fixture (one showing per night) at the annual Fair, because it was still popular with the old fogies, many of whom were “snowbirds” who wintered in the Palm Springs area. We also had several other entertainment stages scattered around the Fairgrounds, scores of food vendors, lots of commercial exhibitions, a 4H show and livestock auction, and one of the largest and most lucrative carnival operations (one carnival at each end of the Fairgrounds) at any Fair in the United States. For the local Hispanic population (the farm workers and their families), the annual carnival was their “Disneyland” opportunity, so we sold an ungodly amount of 10-day passes and made almost $1 million annually from that aspect of the Fair.
Our annual Fair was an unusual one in that it took place in the … Winter. On the positive side, this coincided with the migration of northern States’ and Canadian “snowbirds” to the desert, giving us the ability to run a 10-day Fair with decent attendance (10,000 to 15,000 attendees per day) during the mid-week. This, coupled with 25,000 to 40,000 attendees on weekends and the Presidents’ Day holiday, gave us attendance figures in the 250,000-plus range each year. I think we did something like 280,000 in my first year, setting an all-time record.
On the negative side, our Fair took place in the … Winter, which meant that we were susceptible to occasional crummy weather. In the outdoor entertainment business, like a Fair, a nasty bout of rain or wind can quickly wipe out profits. This is probably why most outdoor festivals avoid the Winter months. Generally, the weather in the Coachella Valley in mid- to late-February is pretty good (70’s to 80’s), and most carnivals, entertainers, and commercial exhibitors are lacking venues at that time. So, each year was a crapshoot, an opportunity for entrepreneurs to make a bunch of money but also there was the chance that bad weather would spoil everything.
This happened a few times while I was running things. It was a shame when that happened, as staff had worked for a whole year planning the greatest Fair of all-time, only be shot down by an uncontrollable factor. In 1991, I think it was, we had about 25,000 guests on the Fairgrounds and Tower of Power was playing on the main stage at 1 p.m. when an enormous haboob (desert dust storm) enveloped the fairgrounds, chasing virtually everyone away within about ten minutes. One year (1994, I think) we experienced four days of rain. A real bummer, that one was.
The County Supervisor who shanghaied me and exiled me to Indio was ashamed of the Fairgrounds, which had become neglected over the decades while the County Fair bank account had gotten fat with profits and which she could observe from her office atop the County Administration Building in Indio. I was directed to put that saved money to use. So, from the get-go, I set about beautifying the Fairgrounds, renovating buildings, and even built a new 50,000 s.f. convention center (Fullenwider Auditorium), replacing a dilapidated Quonset hut exhibit building. We inaugurated that facility by hosting a televised World Championship boxing match, in which the champ retained his belt by almost killing his opponent. Luckily, he came out of his coma in a week or so.
We also built one of the finest Off-Track horse racing wagering facilities in Southern California. There was an older one at the Fairgrounds when I got there; a converted Quonset hut commercial exhibit building which… sucked, to be honest. Our new upscale facility was built with “whales” in mind: bar and food service, private booths with TV’s, plush carpeting throughout, and such. We also prohibited smoking, which was my idea, to keep the operation first class. This move was frowned upon by all other OTB operators in California, because they were sure that bettors would not come to a place where they couldn’t smoke. We also instituted an entry fee…which everyone said was a No-No. Wrong… our OTB facility was an immediate success!
I recall a bunch of Hollywood characters, who had vacation homes in the Valley, who used to frequent our facility. Mickey Rooney, a cherubic bowling ball of a guy, came there often. He was a nice guy, as was Merv Griffin, who would visit accompanied by Marge Everett, the owner of Hollywood Park racecourse. Among our other “regulars” were two Catholic priests, from Palm Springs, who sat separately. “Hey, we’ll take anybody’s money…even the Lord’s!” was my motto.
The entertainment aspect of the job meant that I got to employ and meet quite a few performers over the many years. Most stage entertainment in America is booked in Las Vegas between Thanksgiving and Christmas for the following year. All of the major musicians, acts, and/or their agents show up in Vegas at that time to perform at the big casino hotels and showcase their wares. Their agents have rooms stocked with “freebies” and everyone is in a good mood. The IAFE (International Association of Fairs and Expositions) has their convention and this time, and Charlie and I attended each year, meeting a lot of great people, and making many important connections. Our entertainment agent, Dan Cunning, used this opportunity to lock-in our Main Stage lineup for the following Fair.
Our entertainment budget wasn’t all that much ($5,000 to $10,000 for two shows per day), so we had to settle for “used-to-be-famous” entertainers like The Marshall Tucker Band, The Coasters, Dr. John, Juice Newton, The Shirelles, Jan and Dean, and the like. A few of my Fair Manager peers had much larger stage venues and were able to afford acts like The Beach Boys and Willie Nelson. (I met Willie once, at the Lancaster Fair. He was a very nice guy who simply loved performing: he probably went an hour over his contracted one-hour show just because everyone was having such a good time. After the show, he signed my cowboy hat.) I had a chance to book Clint Black one year, before he was famous, but opted not to, against the advice of my talent agent Dan. That shows how much I knew about entertainment! Instead, we re-booked Tower of Power, who had shown so much professionalism during the disastrous dust storm (they played on, like the orchestra on the Titanic!). I loved those guys.
Good times, they were, for the most part. However, I was commuting 180 miles round-trip per workday for this job, and it eventually wore me out. I had back surgery in 1994, just after the Fair, was relieved of Fair Manager responsibilities, and returned to the County seat as Deputy CEO, a position that I held for another ten years.
Anyway, back to my dream: the return to the Riverside County Fair…
Mike drop!!!…I awoke this morning to find out that the annual County Fair/Date Festival has been canceled for the past two years because of Covid-19! That makes sense, I guess: who needs a quarter-million people sharing their germs and then returning home to infect neighbors and loved ones?
I also learned that the Expocentre operation is now being budgeted County tax dollars ($500,000 per year) to stay afloat during the pandemic.
What a shame…the City of Indio (the site of the Fairgrounds) must be devastated, as the event brings millions of dollars into the community each year.
Come to think of it, I like my current job: a retired schmo in Mesquite, Nevada, collecting my retirement checks, loving my wife Charlie, enjoying my three dogs, and not having to worry about haboobs.
And, occasionally dreaming….