FAIR: Greed has brought dark days to Puyallup

Re: "Extending the state fair's run makes fiscal sense" (editorial, 1-23).

Last year will probably be my last trip to the fair. It has become so expensive I can’t afford to take my family.

Calling the fair nonprofit is an oxymoron. Meeker Days is a small-town community celebration; the fair is nothing but a good-old-boys-club shakedown. Who pays $3 for a bottle of water?

I wrote the fair management team last year expressing my concern that they were pricing themselves out of existence. I didn’t receive one response. Seeing how the fair chose not to release attendance figures, I’m probably not the only one who felt this way. Eliminating the least profitable days, while adding another weekend, shows me the fair's priorities haven’t changed.

Radio Shack, JC Penny and Sears were once great business models. But poor decisions and not being able to adapt to a changing consumer market have these American institutions teetering on the brink of insolvency.

If fair management doesn’t work to make its experience more affordable, I guarantee attendance will keep falling. Greed truly has brought dark days to Puyallup

This story was originally published January 26, 2015 at 3:03 AM with the headline "FAIR: Greed has brought dark days to Puyallup."