Peering behind the scenes at the Oregon Country Fair is like going backstage at the theater and finding the summer camp of your dreams.
At a press preview Monday, the opportunity to look behind the curtain of the 38th year of the fair, before all the crowds came or the parades started, showed that the magic was already visible.
To the casual visitor the fair is usually an event, an annual one-day festival of frivolity, and to some degree that’s appropriate.
Doug Green a 62-year-old fair back up manager, with shoulder length salt and pepper hair and softened craggy features, spends the rest of his year producing music festivals, so he views the fair similarly – as entertainment for patrons – but there’s also more.
Green’s face lights with passion when he’s talking about putting “the show” together and he admits it’s the only festival he works on where he spends a month volunteering. He sees it as “spiritual pay” on a greater balancing sheet.
“I’ll have spent one solid year of my life at the fair in two years,” Green said. “We hope that the energy is communicable.”
With only six paid employees, the rest of the operation is staffed by approximately 5,000 volunteers, who cart away compost, provide security, fight fires and provide medical care to more than 50,000 people in three days.
Five days before the first guest enters the fair’s gates, the main camp is humming with a kind of sleepy activity. No one seems frantic, but everyone seems busy.
The fair’s stages are just being put together and dressed with colorful canopies, but most of the vendors’ booths are still empty and unkempt. An artistic representation of a 1967 hippies living room, an homage to the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, is still mostly in pieces.
“It always looks like its not going to come together and then it does,” General Manager Leslie Scott said. “It’s incredible how well it works. People walk-on because they want to help, and it never fails that the right person shows up.”
Despite its seemingly unchanging appearance, Green and Scott noted that much of the OCF has changed throughout the years.
Green approvingly discussed the active efforts to make the fair more artistic and interactive like the Burning Man Festival and to increase the amount of open space at the fair – both physically and organizationally. He noted that there are now multiple generations who have grown up at the fair.
“We have to make space for new talent, new ideas,” he said. “It would be a dying organization without young people.”
Unseen to the general public, structural and procedural changes are also underway at the OCF. Scott is proud of how the organization is actively working to become more responsive to the community. The Vision Quest initiative, now in its third year, solicits feedback from visitors and guest suggestions, which led to a series of green initiatives and more participatory activities.
This year, the fair is running almost half of its shuttle bus fleet on biofuels, plugging solar panels into the grid, abandoning plastic silverware and offering “green” tickets for an extra $1 to fund chosen projects.
The fair is attempting to create zero waste, and some previous years’ experiments with compostable plastics proved unfruitful. That’s OK, media supervisor Jenny Newtson said.
“We’re willing to fail because how can you say you change if you’re only saying that you’re winning,” she said.
The OCF organization is also moving toward greater year-round community participation after receiving feedback asking for more “regional leadership.”
Even as the 2007 fair is being put together, Scott was dreaming up new ideas to try next year – burlesque is enjoying a revival that would make it ideal for the fair, she mused with a volunteer.
“We plan and we work and we design and we budget all year and then we come out and live it,” she said. “It’s a three-day crescendo.”
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Top Ten Tips for enjoying the fair
Jenny Newtson – Fair attendee since 1984
The former KLCC Morning Edition host and current fair media spokeswoman has only missed the fair once since she first attended in 1984. Here’s her advice for enjoying the fair:
1. Take he shuttle: The LTD buses, which leave from Valley River Center and Eugene Station, are free and save the hassle of paying $5 for parking and walking half an hour to the front gate.
2. Pick up a ‘Peach Pit’: The printed guide to the fair has showtimes, a map and lets visitors squeeze the most out of their experience.
3. Come as you are or as someone else: Dress up in costume, wear something wild or don’t – do what makes you most happy.
4. Bring cash: The on-site ATMs may read “change comes from within,” but bringing cash lets you simply enjoy the fair.
5. Buy your tickets NOW: Saturday is the most popular day, but the three-day pass is a great deal.
6. Bring comfortable shoes: Plan on walking a lot.
7. Don’t forget the essentials: Water and sunscreen should be on everyone’s packing list. but if you need extra or forgot, Whitebird Clinics are stocked to help.
8. Live on fair time: Patience is a virtue at the OCF. If you want to see everything then give yourself a lot of time and multiple days.
9. Don’t miss the vaudeville: The big acts on the main stage will probably come through town again but many of the smaller vaudeville acts won’t be back anytime soon.
10. Bring your inner child and have lots of fun.
Go to the Fair
When: July 13-15
Where: Twelve miles directly west of Eugene on Highway 126.
Tickets: Tickets cannot be bought at the fairgrounds, but are available at all TicketsWest outlets; Internet and phone orders have an additional surcharge. When bought in advance, tickets cost $16 for Friday, $21 for Saturday and $16 for Sunday. On the day of admission, tickets cost $21 for Friday, $26 for Saturday and $21 for Sunday. Three-day tickets cost $42 each.
Getting there: Lane Transit District is operating a shuttle to the fairgrounds. Riding the shuttle is free when you show your ticket to the fair. You can drive to the fairgrounds, but parking costs $5 per car per day.
Peach Pits
The Oregon Country Fair has only six paid employees; the rest of the operation is staffed by approximately 5,000 volunteers.
The fair hosts 50,000 people in three days, roughly the entire population of Springfield or Corvallis.
The fair, a non-profit organization, spends 90 percent of its projected income each year to produce the festival and owns its own land.
During the winter, most of the fairgrounds become marshland.
The peach logo did not appear until 1975, when the event was billed as “The Oregon Country Renaissance Fair.” The “renaissance” title was dropped entirely in 1976.
Fair Warning
Though stories of wild activities at the fair are part of local lore, organizers warn that alcohol and drugs are not permitted at the event.
Smoking is permitted in designated areas only.
Videography and glass containers are also banned.