For another year, the Niverville Old Tyme Country Fair was a rousing success. With excellent weather and huge attendance, the fair committee’s general manager, Dustin Krahn, says that the event went off almost flawlessly.
Planning and execution for each year’s fair begins more or less immediately after the preceding one, and Krahn says that all the preparation throughout the previous 12 months was smooth-sailing.
“We had a few new faces join the planning committee, which is always a big help and allows us to spread things out and make everyone’s job a little bit easier,” Krahn says.
The committee was blessed with a good number of volunteers this year. Krahn says they were a little short on setup volunteers, but the crew began putting everything up a day early to compensate and the issue worked itself out.
There were no significant glitches throughout the weekend outside of an occasional hiccup with a ticket scanner or point of sale machine—certainly nothing that affected the event as a whole.
“All in all, I would say this was the smoothest fair I’ve been a part of in terms of how things all unfolded,” says Krahn. “Aside from a few things running about ten minutes late on Saturday, everything ran very smoothly and most of the acts stayed within their time or worked with us to get back on schedule. We were well prepared with a solid plan this year and that certainly paid off for all of us behind the scenes.”
In 2022, the fair saw some long lineups from people looking to purchase tickets, due to issues with the point of sale machines and internet connectivity. But the committee learned some lessons from that experience and made some adjustments for 2023. New machines this year simplified and sped up the process of buying tickets. There were also a lot fewer cash transactions and a significant increase in the number of pre-purchase transactions.
Fairgoers may be surprised to learn that admission fees only cover about 40 percent of the cost of the event.
“Obviously there is a lot of ground to cover to get from 40 percent to 100 percent,” Krahn says. “If you’re wondering how we make it all work, you can turn your eyes to our sponsors. They are the ones who step up and bring this home for all of us… We hope that the community and fairgoers really take to heart and understand how big of a part the sponsors play in making this event happen and allowing us to do things that you will not see at many other festivals of our size.”
Krahn adds that throwing a fair of this size is certainly not without risk, the most significant of which is always the weather.
“Unfortunately, no amount of planning will ever get around that unknown. It is the biggest risk we take every year, because regardless of what the weather winds up being, we are committed to all of the various artists, entertainers, and contractors that we hire.”
This is why the fair’s sponsors are so pivotal, he explains.
“They help us in a big way by easing that pressure and sharing in the risk that it takes to host an event like this,” says Krahn.
Although there are too many people who give of their time and energy to make the fair a reality, he does want to single out a few key personnel.
Raesha Enns and Irene Unrau were in charge of the mainstage. This already challenging task got even more challenging this year, as there were twice as many bands as usual. Organizing the soundchecks and schedules is a huge job in and of itself, but running the stage also involves providing transportation, accommodations, and meals for the performers, among other things.
“Raesha also tends to order me food and remind me to eat during fair weekend,” Krahn says. “So that deserves a special shoutout as well!”
This year, Lorissa Teichmann and Jenny Trinkies took on the Kids Zone. Krahn says that the committee had a goal to do more with the Kids Zone in 2023 and that Teichmann and Trinkies not only made huge strides to improve this offering but also have lots of ideas to keep improving it into the future.
Dana Reuther took on the task of organizing the parade in 2023.
“The modified parade route worked well and allowed traffic to flow through town using the First Street South detour,” Krahn says. “This is as opposed to previous years, where both detours at one time or another crossed paths with the parade.”
Finally, Krahn says that he is thankful to all the businesses on Niverville’s Main Street for accommodating the event.
“With reduced access and parking, we are well aware that the fair can be a fairly large inconvenience for some of them,” he says. “We owe them a very special thank you for their patience and for always being supportive of us.”
Planning for the Niverville Olde Tyme Country Fair 2024 is already underway. In fact, the committee began putting pieces together in April and they’ve already sent offers to some potential acts.
Krahn would love to see more people join the planning committee come September so that each role can be spread out a little more, allowing a full team to work on each project instead of just a single volunteer.
“It really just boils down to not overworking or burning people out. With a team, things tend to be a lot more fun. There are more ideas being shared, and the task at hand is simply a lot easier to take on. So we really want to focus on that more in the coming years.”
