NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The numbers for Dillons Dollar Day were strong Monday at the Kansas State Fair. There were 12,235 $1 tickets sold and 15,600 scans of Plus Cards. When you count in people who already used their full price scans and RVs and comp tickets, over 33,000 people attended Monday.
"We're happy with all the numbers," said Kansas State Fair General Manager Bryan Schulz. "Dillons have been a great sponsor of the Fair and they continue to step up and help us wherever we need. We just appreciate that."
The main medical issues on Monday according to the Kansas Highway Patrol were related to dehydration, so it's important to remind people that they can bring water bottles into the fairgrounds and now there are four dedicated stations for them to fill at.
"We've got one in Meadowlark, we have one in Domestic Arts, we have one in Cottonwood Court and we have one in the breezeway of Ad Astra," Schulz said.
They are also going to add six additional bottle filling stations that will be in place for next year's fair. The fair is also going to ask the midway company about if there is any shade they can provide in future years and there was talk of moving some of the shades that are by some of the livestock buildings this year down to the area near the grandstand and the midway next year.
Another issue that the large crowd brought with it Monday was some struggles with parking.
"People were double parking and triple parking," Schulz said. "It's always the guy in the middle that needs to get out right away. We were having to rearrange those. Be cognizant. If you see that there's already two people in front of you, don't park behind them, because then you are illegally parked. We had people that were driving underneath the front parts of some of our stock trailers, because that was the only place to park. Those stock trailers eventually need to get out. You will be towed. That's an added expense you don't want. We'd rather have you spend that money here on the fairgrounds."
Given the lack of parking volunteers, the fair plans to get a dedicated volunteer group just to park the band buses on Wednesday, as the majority of those will be at the fair then.