Fair Play: Behind the Scenes at Deschutes County's Biggest Attraction

The Source sat down with Deschutes County Fair and Expo Director, Geoff Hinds, to talk about what makes the fairgrounds special, the facility’s impact on tourism throughout the region and its expansion plans moving forward.

the Source: What makes Deschutes County Fairgrounds different from other places?

Geoff Hinds: It’s one of the largest County fairs in in the country – one of the five largest. We have 340 acres currently of space. [It] was designed to accommodate events of all size and types. It has the ability to do that really well because of its size, being so large, and just the design features that were put in. So, 340 acres of space gives us the flexibility to do events of almost any kind.

We’ve done up to 11 simultaneous events on any single day across the campus. And then, of course, the Fair and Fairwell festival are our two largest events by population or attendance size –where we’re getting close to 50,000 people on the property at any time.

tS: What type of events does the fairgrounds offer?

GH: We try to make it as diverse as possible so that we’re attracting the widest possible-crowd. We’re not just one thing. We don’t do just horse shows, we don’t do just music festivals. If you look at what we do, it’s really diverse. We have just a little bit of everything; it kind of runs the gamut.

tS: Tell me about the proposed expansion of the fairgrounds?

GH: The expansion, the acquisition of that property, has been going on for a long. [We] recognize that at some point, the community is going to continue to grow, and that even as big as they built the original property, there would be future needs for the community.

That’s kind of the exploratory process we’re going through, is to find out what the community is looking for… We’re designing what’s it going to need in 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 and 100 years down the line.

tS: I’ve heard, with the expansion, the grounds will be the second-largest in the country.

GH: The Los Angeles County Fair is, as we know it, is the largest… so with the expansion, the acquisition of some additional 140 acres, we’ll be afforded 60 acres of either owned or leased space, which would be six shy of what LA County is. It’s a huge property, already, and then it just gets bigger.

tS: How does the fairgrounds play into tourism for the region?

GH: Our number says that we generate about $100 million-plus in economic impact to the region annually. Fairwell Festival did their own study, and they came back with a number that said $120 million for their three-day festival alone. So, one of us is off – I’d like to believe we are.

As far as visitation, the numbers we pull show that this is the number-one developed tourist destination in all of Central Oregon. It actually gets slightly more than [Mt.] Bachelor and it gets more than Hayden [Homes Amphitheater].

We’ll get close to a million visitors on the property on an annual basis. The majority of those do come through in the summer, because that tends to be when our larger events are. Approximately 50% of those are people coming from out of the region, they’re coming from more than 50 miles… So that creates economic impact.

tS: How does that impact the region as a whole?

GH: They’re staying in hotels, they’re fueling up, they’re buying gas and groceries, they’re eating in local restaurants, so there’s a big economic driver because of that. With almost a million attendees, you know, that’s almost a half million folks that are coming into the community annually and looking for a place to eat, stay, shop, all of those things that provide economic benefit…That compresses down into Bend, and all the way down in Sunriver and to Prineville and Madras.

tS: What are the current and future plans for the grounds?

GH: I think the community should be proud of what we have to offer. Our goal is to make sure that it continually stays where it is and to invest back into it…It’s getting older, and it’s becoming more and more expensive to maintain, and inflation impacts us. So, we’re having to be strategic in how we’re operating.

It forces us to be creative in what we’re doing, so some of our success is forced by that, because we’re being forced to think outside the box – what else can we do, and how else can we do it?

At times you go like, ‘it’s a lot,’ and it’s because we’re constantly trying to do something else to make sure that we’re generating revenue that all goes right back into the facility…it’s a really expensive facility to operate. I think the ultimate benefit is that’s just more stuff for the community to do.

This article appears in Source Weekly June 19, 2025.