UNITE Your Community with the IAFE Read and Win Ribbons

*supported by IAFE and NICA

The Read and Win program will help you ACHIEVE your GOALS!

How does it work?

1. Develop an incentive for youth to “Come To The Fair.” Ex: tickets, coupons for free or discounted food/drink, carnival tickets, etc.

2. Partner with your local school/library to reward students with the Read and Win ribbon and incentive coupon based on scholastic success.

3. Watch youth get excited about reading and coming to the fair. But WAIT, there’s more!

Each member fair can receive up to 1,000 ribbons FREE per calendar year, courtesy of NICA. Additional ribbons may be purchased for 7 cents each.

Contact Matt at the IAFE Office (800-516-0313) or receptionist@fairsandexpos.com or visit our website to download an order form.

IAFE ZONE 2 MEETING DECEMBER 1, 2022 INDIANAPPOLIS

Terry Atchley, President Florida Federation of Fairs, Marla Calico, President & CEO IAFE, Jacki Stough, Central Florida Fair, Rhonda Ward, Collier Fair, Jeremy Parsons, IAFE Chair, Fran Crone, SW FL & Lee County Fair, Jennifer Giesike, IAFE Vice Chair, Kelly Collins, Zone 2 Chair

Greg Chiecko, OABA President & CEO

Greetings friends of the Florida Federation of Fairs from the Outdoor Amusement Business Association (OABA)

At the time of this writing, we are attending many of the state and regional meetings that take place across the country. Many of the same discussions are taking place about the cost of goods and services, the high price of fuel and the shortage of labor with carnivals and fairs alike. Many are apprehensive of price increases to our guests and some are forced to raise prices out of necessity. There has never been a greater time for fairs and carnivals to get together and communicate on how we move forward as an industry.

While fairs certainly have their own challenges with a depleting group of volunteers, difficulty in obtaining low-skilled workers and rising costs it appears that our carnivals face these challenges and then some. We hear the stories of some fairs no longer being able to obtain a carnival. We hear about the labor shortage that results in less rides arriving on the fairgrounds. Let’s discuss what is going on.

The Outdoor Amusement Business Association (OABA) estimates that at the end of 2022 we have about 200 active carnival companies in the United States. That is down from around 400 in 2017, a 50 percent reduction in the past five years. The reasons for this dramatic drop are many and varied. Among them rising operating costs, lack of labor and a non-generational transformation.

The OABA has made presentations at the IAFE Convention and several state and regional meetings outlining the expenditures of a typical carnival. Every dollar taken in the carnival expends the following: 10% on insurance, 20% on transportation and fuel, and 25% on labor. That leaves 45% to pay the rent, cover overhead and administrative costs, new equipment investment and maintenance and, hopefully, a little profit. Obviously, this formula is not sustainable. We need to have serious discussions with our fair partners on how we can adjust the current model in order to create a mutually beneficial working relationship in the future.

The inconsistent and random foreign guest worker labor force (H2B) plagues our industry every year. The amount of Department of Labor certificates for labor exceeds 225,000. This is the number of jobs available that United States workers don’t want. The 66,000, and in some cases, 120,000 visas allocated still fall short of the jobs by over 100,000. The result is a lottery system to allocate workers which usually takes place in late December or early January. If a carnival receives no workers, they can’t fulfill the contractual obligations that they might have held with a fair for decades. The carnival industry lives by the motto “the show must go on” and for the most part, we have been able to uphold our obligations. However, the day may come, in the near future, that a fair will get the phone call they won’t have a carnival this year. We continue to advocate in Washington DC to permanently fix this crisis, and we continue to head in the right direction, but we are not there yet.

We look forward to seeing many of you in Orlando at the Florida Federation of Fairs and Zone 2 Meetings in May.