Douglas daily dispatch., 1928-03-11
PROBLEM OF FINANCING FAIR
AND BALANCING ITS PROGRAM
CHIEF FACTORS FOR SUCCESS
Survey Hints There Is Demand for Usual Annual Exhi-
bitOn by COcise County Association and That There
Are Available exhibits From Many Sources If the
Exhibition Is Arranged.

/ to know as soon as possible what that
+ premium list has to offer The same
thing applies to every activity. The
cowboy will train pony to rope q
calf quickly if he sees big prize
offered in the premium list for the
best calf roper, but he can't train the
pony in q week. He has to do it at
odd hours during the summer.
People Want Excitement
| Quite a bit has been said and writ
ten about aunusements or sports staged
for the benefit of the public and not
properly managed. The demand OF
the crowds at county lair is Tor
excitement. They want to see some-
thing thrilling and something going on
all the time. Nearly all the visitors
at fair are interested in at least
one exhibit. The majority visit every
exhibit although few pay great atten-
ton to all of them. The entire throng,
however, is interested in seeing some-
thing exciting.
Balloon aScenSionS used to be one
of the great events at county fairs.
The man took his life and para
chute in his hands every afternoon of
4 the fair and went soaring up into the
sky in balloon. When he was up
1 several thousand feet he would let go
and come. rocketing down until the
parachute opened and set him on his
/ feet in some corn field. The balloon
always turned over and floated to
earth with black smoke pouring up
around it.
! The crowds liked that. There was
the element of chance. They all
secretly hoped that the man might
! fall some day and forget the para
chute and plunge downward only that
he would fall into the river and be
rescued by some good swimmer. The
thrill the crowds got was just half OF
it. The thrill they expected to get
/ if something went wrong made the
county fair a crowded place and a
great and accepted success.
Cowboy Sports
Cowboy sports programs have never
been highly successful in this district.
In Tucson, once year, with not SO
! good a COW country to draw from
and no greater basic potentialities, a
rodeo is staged that has come to rival
Pendleton or Cheyenne. One views
I that rodeo with it's whirlwind OF
events taking up every minute from
the start of the program to the finish
with a rocketing rider, a. bawling
steer, pitching horse, wild COW or
a whining rope going every second to
keep the crowd on its toes. That
spells success.
/ Cowboys will, like other. classes of
professionals, do anything within rea-
son, for money and if it is arranged
to have them do enough, the poney
will come in by way of the gate.
This has been proved here in years
past and the fair association has been
completely convinced that the cowboy
sports, horse races, a carnival, air.
plane stunt fliers or anything else
/ that is thrilling or amusing and is
not crude or dishonest will add to the
attractions and the ultimate success
of the fair, but it has been fully de-
termined that the program must pos
Sess snap The acts must be staged
on schedule and must be short and
sweet.
Learn BY Experience
The annual Cochise county fair has
been school of experience to group
of business end professional men,
mostly of Douglas, with few helping
hands throughout the country, who
have worked at the business of trying
to create a bigger and better fair
every year They have gone through
in inStallments of a few weeks or
months each year, what made P. T.
Barnum one of the outstanding circus
proprietors of his day. They have
! learned something of the art of EN-
tertaining the public and at the same
! time inStructing them on broad
scale about the resources of the place
in which they live.
It has paid big dividends if in moth
ing but satisfaction. The fair associa-
ton has boaSted that each year the
fair has been bigger and better than
ever and for fear of not living up to
| the standard the talk of disbandment
arose this year.
Next Fair to Be Different
There is little doubt but that the
challenge will be met and there is
little doubt but that the eighth annual
Cochise county fair will be bigger and
better and it is going to be an eye
opener. 1t is agreed among those
who have worked on previous fairs
that now is the time, if ever, to profit
by experience Dozens of men who
have worked on the other fairs all
have ideas to offer for the next one
and their ideas are to the effect of
making the next fair something en-
tirely different from any fair that has
ever been staged here.
The directors and workers in the
fair association are demanding that
every department of the fair be organ
lied and conducted as rigidly and as
efficiently as the exhibit departments
are. They are demanding that the
entire county get together in this one
work which has drawn the whole
county together as nothing else ever
has and face the various problems Of
the fair and thrash them out.
Finances Must Be Had
The biggest problem has always been
finances. It has not been that Co
chise county is poor or that the people