The Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center has been coined the “premier facility of its kind” in the Northwest, boosting the region’s tourism economy and drawing impressive crowds with its year-round events.
With a focus on providing a variety of opportunities for residents and visitors, the campus holds more than 400 events annually on its 320-acre site on the southeast edge of Redmond. Deschutes County has also been working on the acquisition of an additional 120 acres.
In late August, Fair and Expo Director Geoff Hinds announced that after six years at the helm, he would step down in September to take a new job in leadership at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming.
In a resignation letter obtained by the Source, Hinds noted the continued “year-over-year growth” during his time there and following its return after the pandemic, welcoming new events that have “put Deschutes County Fair and Expo firmly on the map as the premier event facility in the Northwest.”
“As an organization, we have so much to be proud of — from building strong community partnerships to welcoming nearly one million visitors each year, generating significant economic impact for Central Oregon, over $100 million each year, and most importantly, creating memories and opportunities that matter deeply to this community,” he wrote.
Before his departure, Hinds said the fairgrounds was focused on “getting creative” and investing back into the facility to keep up with rising operational costs.
According to County Commissioner Phil Chang, the Fair and Expo Center was already in a bad spot, financially, before Hinds stepped into his role. From the start, there was a focus on finding new ways to generate more income for the entity.
Much of the Fair and Expo Center’s success in recent years, Hinds told the Source, was generated by a need to think outside the box and seek out new opportunities for generating revenue.
“At times you go, ‘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,” Hinds told the Source in June.
While Fair and Expo revenue has seen an uptick in recent years, it’s not enough to cover needed costs associated with the 25-year-old facility, Hinds said before his departure.
While its offerings and crowds continue to grow year after year, sustaining that momentum while increasing revenue is complex, as the aging campus and its finances face growing pressures.
In the face of steep cost increases, needed repairs and shifting leadership, fair leaders are working toward new solutions. Meanwhile, rising operational costs threaten to outpace revenue at the Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center.
Forecasting deficits
While the Fair and Expo Center has seen success in bringing in larger crowds and more revenue, Fair and Expo leaders have indicated financial concerns moving forward, as a result of rising costs. In May, Hinds said the facility could be heading toward a deficit if nothing changes, according to budget projections from a Deschutes County Budget Committee Meeting.
According to a five-year forecast of Fair and Expo funds, revenue is projected to grow every year. But with expenditures also growing alongside revenue, the forecasts show the potential for “working capital” to be in a deficit between Fiscal Year 2026 through 2029.
According to Hinds, these projections were based on what the Fair and Expo finances could look like if they continue on the same path they are on today, with no changes.
Working capital in Fiscal Year 2025 was listed at $403,000, but projected to see a decline in FY 2026, at $212,680.
According to this five-year forecast, revenue in 2027 is estimated at $4,468,748, with expenditures listed as $4,517,749, leaving the Fair and Expo with a deficit of $49,000. The projected deficit in FY 2028 is expected to grow, with a deficit of $397,333.
“These [charts] are showing that it could be negative in the next few years moving forward. Hopefully this is worst-case scenario, and we’re able to offset this,” Hinds said at the meeting.
According to Deschutes County Administrator Erik Kropp, who is interim Fair and Expo director while a search for Hinds’ replacement continues, price increases for facility use and rentals are evaluated each year as part of the County’s fee schedule process that goes before the Board of County Commissioners.
Hinds said the Fair and Expo Center will have to find new opportunities for revenue generation, and hopes leadership can make these changes before going into the negatives.
“Our goal will be to recognize budget savings or increase revenue each and every year so that we don’t dip below where we are today,” he added.
The concerns around forecasted funding, Hinds said at the meeting, stem from both significant increases in overall costs, and the issues that come with an aging facility, requiring additional repairs and investments.
Rising costs and needed repairs
Cost increases are significant across operational spending, labor and overall event and facility maintenance, and are expected to continue rising, according to budget reports from May.
While the majority of expenses go toward staffing, as well as materials and services, funds are mostly generated through the leasing of the space, food and beverage sales, equipment rentals and the production of events. Funding is also received from Transient Room Tax.
According to Fair and Expo leaders, as the facility ages, needed repairs and replacement of equipment across the 320-acre campus is increasing in both size and scope.
The Fair and Expo Center’s current Reserve Fund, meant to address current and future repairs, remains significantly underfunded, according to Hinds. Because of growing costs associated with operating the Fair and Expo Center, he said, it hasn’t been possible for the fair to “infuse cash” into the fund over the last two years.
According to Kropp, fully funding capital replacement needs at the county fairgrounds is an issue throughout the state of Oregon and elsewhere.
Last fiscal year, the Fair and Expo Capital Reserve Fund for maintenance and repairs ended with $3.7 million, most of which comes from 1% of the County’s Transient Lodging Tax — which brought in $459,544 from 2024 through 2025.
While Hinds said they may have access to grants to help pay for certain improvements, there is a laundry list of needed repairs in the future. These include repairing or replacing roofs and asphalt, plumbing upgrades, fences, exterior landscape, as well as planned facility land acquisition and future buildout. Many of these repair and maintenance items are necessary to keep the facility fully operational.
County Commissioner Chang confirms what Kropp said — that many fairgrounds around the state are financially strapped, with aging or failing facilities.
“Deschutes County is doing a lot better than most, but we still are not on great footing in terms of deferred maintenance,” he told the Source.
Despite his current concerns, Chang acknowledged that these challenges are not new.
“While what we have in our maintenance reserve is pretty meager, we had less before. I would say that we were in a worse financial position before Geoff Hinds than we are now, but deferred maintenance comes to roost,” Chang said.
Inflation in the last few years, he added, has made staffing a lot more financially challenging.
According to Chang, Hinds “tightened up” the fiscal management, adding larger events such as Fairwell Fest and other new programming. But larger events lead to more wear and tear on the facility, making maintenance and repairs even more urgent.
Another challenge, Chang said, is that the venue is essentially, “busting at the seams.” While there are plans to move forward with the 140-acre land acquisition, he worries about the needed costs for this large plan.
“So we don’t just need to figure out how to cover deferred maintenance, we need to finance construction of new facilities,” Chang told the Source. He added that there are potential partnership opportunities for this.
“In some ways, it’s like a treadmill. We’re landing bigger events, generating more revenue from those, but our expenses keep going up and we have this deferred maintenance. So, we may not be in that much better of a financial position than we were five years ago, even though, in terms of programming, events are so much bigger and so much higher dollar,” Chang said.
Contributing to a booming tourist economy
Despite financial pressures, it’s no secret that the Fair and Expo Center has a significant impact on tourism across the region. Throughout the year, about 1 million visitors attend music festivals, rodeos, tradeshows and more.
The size of the Deschutes County Fairgrounds allows the flexibility to do events of almost any kind. According to Hinds back in June, the Fair and Expo Center has done up to 11 simultaneous events on any single day across the campus. The grounds also has its two largest events by population or attendance size, the County Fair and its Fairwell Festival, which brought in close to 50,000 people on the property.
“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,” Hinds said.
“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],” Hinds told the Source.
“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,” Hinds added.
According to interim fair director Kropp, the estimated local economic impact generated by events at the Fair and Expo Center was $104,208,600 in 2023. In that year, the campus saw nearly 1 million visitors.
While the fairgrounds impact the region as a whole, Redmond City Councilor Kathryn Osborne noted the secondary benefits to the City of Redmond, in addition to its surrounding communities.
From a citywide perspective, attendees of large events fill Redmond hotels, campgrounds and short-term rentals, and keep small businesses and restaurants busy, she said.
“This activity generates a positive economic ripple effect,” Osborne said, referencing the benefits of more transient lodging tax revenue as a result of Fair and Expo events. The tax revenue helps fund important projects throughout the region, helping strong local businesses grow and thrive.
“They’re able to hire more local workers, partner with other local businesses, and give back by sponsoring community events and donating to local causes,” she told the Source. “In turn, that stability helps families pay their bills, put food on the table, and build a more secure future here at home.”
The Fair and Expo Center director, according to the job description, is responsible for “overseeing event production, community partnerships, staff leadership, capital improvement planning and year-round operations across the entire campus.”A new person has not yet been selected for this job, but plans continue to find a new director to lead the Fair and Expo Center.
Deschutes County administrator Kropp has been the interim Fair and Expo director since Hinds’ departure.
According to Kropp, Deschutes County opened recruitment for the director position soon after Hinds left. The County conducted in-person interviews at the end of October and despite a strong candidate pool, did not end up with a hire. Kropp told the Source the County will most likely re-open recruitment for the position in December and continue recruiting through January.
“We are proud of the rich history and excited about the future. The Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center is the premier facility of its kind in the Northwest,” said Kropp. “The mission is to provide and operate a premier multi-purpose facility offering exceptional customer service and an environment of fun while maximizing the economic potential of the facilities as well as the economic impact for Deschutes County.”
This article appears in the Source December 18, 2025.
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