Rural and Community Art Project Grant

Although admission to the Fair for children age ten and under is free, most of the children's attractions are not. One of the Fair Association's goals in hiring Tricia and The Toonies is to serve the community by providing high quality entertainment for children and families at no additional charge. To provide entertainment that promotes kindness, acceptance and respect for one another, and the importance of family and community. To provide children an opportunity to develop an appreciation for live music, song and theatre. To increase Fair attendance among young families and children, first-time Fair attendees, and bring in more attendees from the surrounding communities. One of the goals in hiring Country, Folk, Rock and Roll or R and B bands is to support area musicians by hiring bands from the Arrowhead Region. In addition, we hope to promote fellowship and social connections by bringing people together for the shared experience of listening to live music performances. To measure success, at the beginning of each performance, we'll ask if they have been to the Fair before or if this is their first time and what town they are from. We'll evaluate the success of the performance by observing the audience to see if children are participating and enjoying themselves and if the audience is engaged. We'll monitor how many people stay for the entire performance and return for the second performance. We'll ask attendees to write comments about the show in the provided guestbook and online. We'll submit a report that includes the number of new and returning attendees, where they are from, our observations of the audience and audience comments to the Fair Board. To evaluate the live band performances, we will estimate crowd size and compare it to previous years. We will observe the audience to see if they are engaged and enjoying the performances. We will write a brief report for the Fair Board that includes attendance numbers and observations of the audience.