NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — With the 2023 Kansas State Fair opening Friday, General Manager Bryan Schulz was on the KWBW morning show live from the Fairgrounds and noted some of the improvements made for this year's Fair, including the walking surface in much of the grounds.
"Right now, we spent close to a million dollars, it will be closer to $2 million when we get done. The legislature a couple of years ago, gave us some monies to start upgrading, one of them was for asphalt and we have put down a lot of asphalt on these grounds."
There is also a new integrated PA system that is the largest by area covered in the state.
"That was another part of the monies that we got from the legislature," Schulz said. "When I started, it was, okay, how do we tell people, we're in tornado alley, how do we tell people that there could be imminent weather? How do we tell people that we've got a lost child? How do we tell people you've triple parked, please move your car. We worked with Hopp's Sound out of McPherson and the sound system that we have is absolutely phenomenal. We've been able to create 19 different emergency announcements by the push of a button, both in English and Spanish. That can tell people that we've got a storm coming, but then we're also able to play a little bit of background music and be able to talk to people as they are coming and going."
The hope is that the fair can get back to the pre-COVID attendance numbers they had a few years back.
"We're hoping to get to 350,000, absolutely," Schulz said. "That's kind of the average we had prior to COVID. We're hoping to gain back up into that."
The Kansas State Fair is Sept. 8 to 17 in Hutchinson.
Below is the interview with Bryan Schulz from the KWBW Morning Show.
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