The Dixie Classic Fair
September 30, 2007 – 11:49 pm
| Rating: | 2/5 |
| Price: | 1/5 |
| Atmosphere: | 3/5 |
| Attractions: | 1/5 |
| Food: | 3/5 |
As we entered the parking lot we were greeted by our first ripoff of the day — $7.00 for parking. While it wasn’t extremely hot out the sun was at that perfect spot where it blinds you in such a way that you can’t see much of anything unless you walk the opposite direction.
We made our way past some food vendors at which Luke and Stephanie got a “Philly Cheese Steak” and chicken-on-a-stick for $6.00 each. Luke looked at the sandwich like it was missing something so I asked and he replied, “The meat.” The chicken looked ok but didn’t come with anything else…just a bit of meat on a stick. While Kara and I were tempted to get funnel cakes and deep fried Oreos, Milky Ways, and Snickers we decided to wait until after the ferris wheel ride to make sure we wouldn’t puke on each other.
Wandering around aimlessly we found some indoor exhibits that were a nice respite from the sun and temptation of food. The displays for 4-H, Boy Scouts, etc. were very poorly designed and served absolutely no purpose. For example, one team created an area with eight or nine various Barbies just sitting there. Very useful. Good use of money. The next area was pictures that had been judged. Many of them were very creative and made me wish I had a nicer digital camera. The Judge’s pick was a close-up of a praying mantis…very cool.
At 6:30 there was a show featuring border Collies that were trained to herd Canadian geese and ducks. The trainer/operator (whatever you call him) could give the dog four basic commands: lay, up, circle left, circle right. With these he was able to order the dog to corral the three geese onto a seesaw and into a large tube and the ducks into a “magic” washer that produced three very white ducks given three very dirty ducks.
One of the two most disappointing events was the bull riding. The show “started” at 7:30 but we didn’t see any riding until about 8:00 after which we left the show at 8:20 because it was so boring. Most of the guys were only able to stay on for 2-3 seconds. I was expecting at least 5-10.
Since the sun finally hid itself we opted for the ferris wheel. I’m pretty confident I’ve never spent as much on any form of entertainment per unit of time as this ride cost. It was $4.00 per person per ride and lasted a whopping three (3), yes three, minutes. I counted the baskets (or whatever you want to call them) to 24 with six seats in each giving a total of 144 seats per ride at $4 which is $576 per ride. Let’s just say they weren’t losing money on that ride. But back to the math…$4 for three minutes is $1.33 per minute or $2.67 per minute if you include my wife. In just 5 minutes I would have paid for a month of WoW!
At least the food was good. Kara and I split a powered sugar-coated, chocolate-drizzled funnel cake for $5 that was quite good and a homemade mug of root beer in a “collectible” mug for $4 that was also good. It’s too bad that both were overpriced.
For a total of $34 we got parking, admittance, 1 funnel cake, 1 root beer, and a 3-minute ferris wheel ride. Not a very good ROI. If you have kids stay away from this place because you will go broke just trying to feed the little buggers, let alone trying to keep them entertained.
Was this helpful? Check out these related posts:
