Get ready for the 2011 N.C. State Fair! We just couldn't wait until the fair starts on Oct. 13 to begin reporting on its annual 11 days of statewide competitions, thrilling rides and everything fried on a stick.
In this blog, we'll touch base with some of you who are already baking up that blue ribbon cake or polishing the hooves on your champion steer. We'll also keep you up-to-date on what's going to be new and different about the fair this year.
As expected, Friday night's downpours appear to have kept many a fairgoer away. Attendance Friday was 42,666 -- down from 57,798 on the same day at last year's fair.
But add in Thursday's half-day attendance of 35,215, and that's nearly 78,000 people who went to this year's fair in its first two days -- rainy or not.
So at this point, attendance is ahead of last year. (Just forget that there was no Thursday attendance then!)
Thad Ogburn is The N&O's Metro Editor, overseeing most local news reporting. His previous jobs have included editor of North Raleigh News and Features Editor, during which he learned that comics attract more reader response than just about anything else we do. His guilty pleasure is reality TV, which he finds not very real at all. That's assuming, of course, there is room on his DVR amid his daughter's "iCarly" episodes and his wife's daily installments of "One Life To Live."
